Trump news – live: President threatens anti-racism protesters with 10-year jail terms for statue vandalism and defends coronavirus testing order

Donald Trump: Nicholas Kamm/AFP.Getty
Donald Trump: Nicholas Kamm/AFP.Getty

Donald Trump has upped the ante in his war of words with anti-racism demonstrators after threatening anyone involved in toppling statues and monuments of divisive figures from American history with “serious force” and up to 10 years in jail.

The president tweeted his latest “LAW AND ORDER” message after Black Lives Matter activists in DC attempted to bring down a statue of seventh president Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square near the White House, scrawling the phrase ”killer scum” along its base and also defacing the nearby St John’s Church.

Trump has also attempted to defend his order to slow down coronavirus testing after his economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, moved to downplay the threat of a second wave despite several southern states suffering flare-ups in their infections rates since reopening, including Arizona, which the president is visiting on Tuesday to champion his US-Mexico border wall.

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