President Donald Trump painted a dire image of America if he loses his re-election, warning in an interview with his son that the economy would collapse, law enforcement would disappear and the "whole country will be Minneapolis."
His threat that without him the country would look like the Midwestern city was alluding to the looting and riots that beset the city for several nights following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in police custody. He did not mention that during the day there were largely peaceful demonstrations in the city or that there's an entire meme about how nice Minnesotans are.
"I feel that if the Democrats get in, we are literally going to end up in a recession-slash-depression the likes of which you've never seen," Trump said. "There will be tremendous negative growth, tremendous bedlam all over the place, there won't be law and order. You'll have a Seattle, you'll have a Minneapolis like you've never seen before. The whole country will be Minneapolis."
Trump's dystopian prediction came during a 20-minute interview with Donald Trump Jr. on his online show "Triggered" that ranged in topics from which Trump child is his favorite ("All the same, 100 percent") to "Saturday Night Live" ("I don't find it funny") to Don Jr.'s quarantine beard ("I don't like it on you").
Trump slammed Democratic-run cities, specifically deriding the creation of an autonomous, police-free zone in a Seattle neighborhood and taking credit for easing the unrest in Minneapolis.
"The Democrat-run cities are the ones having the trouble," he said. "You look at Seattle, when you go to Minnesota and you take a look at what's taken place there, it's incredible. They tried to take over a great city, Minneapolis, and they had taken it over before I said, 'you have to send in the National Guard'."
Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, activated the Minnesota National Guard after the protests turned violent.
Trump's son asked him how he could convince voters in Democratic-led states to vote for him. The president replied:
"I happen to think it's explaining to people that are getting ready to vote on November 3 that there's only one answer and you can't go back to the bedlam," Trump said. "The country I don't believe would ever recover from it. You'd have a situation like Seattle times one thousand. The country would never survive it."