Spike Lee Scorches Trump Over Rousting Peaceful DC Protestors for Photo Op Like He’s ‘Bull Connor’

Filmmaker Spike Lee tore into President Donald Trump’s use of federal forces and National Guard troops to roust peaceful protestors from Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Park for a photo op, calling out the “tough guy” image Trump was desperate to portray and comparing the president one of the most vicious segregationists of the 1960s.

During a discussion about the George Floyd protests with Anderson Cooper, Lee offered his condolences to the Floyd family but then turned to the Oval Office occupant and blasted his inability to unify a country riven by racial injustice and outraged over systemic police misconduct.

“I don’t expect this guy in the White House to say anything to heal the nation,” Lee said. “He’s incapable of doing this. I don’t even know why we’re wasting time expecting him to do something that’s not in his heart, is not in his spirit.”

There’s a very short phrase. Deeds not words. You can talk all you want. But what your deeds show who you are and I don’t know why we’re having a discussion about what type of person this guy is,” Lee added, before alluding to Trump’s widely denounced stunt of walking to St. John’s Church to hold up someone’s Bible right after law enforcement had used tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and violent beatings to sweep peaceful protestors out of the area.

“I was watching CNN. That thing at the White House with the photo op. That’s insanity,” Lee exclaimed. “Those Americans, those diverse group of Americans, a peaceful demonstration. They have to call on the hard boys unprovoked, to clear the area so he could walk from the White House like he’s a tough guy. Like he’s John Wayne, General George Patton. ‘Bull’ Connor.”

After invoking the infamous segregationist Commissioner of Public Safety from Birmingham, who ordered police to violently put down Civil Rights protests, Lee continued with the historical analogy. “You know, you may as well have come out with the water cannons and the German Shepherds while you’re at it. Let’s go back to Birmingham 1963.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.