Giuliani blames riots on 'weak, incompetent, progressive Democrats'
Former NYC mayor and President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani weighs in on unrest following death of George Floyd.
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani told "Bill Hemmer Reports" Monday that former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin be charged with first-degree murder if officials conclude that George Floyd died of asphyxiation on May 25.
"He had that man down there for about eight minutes," Giuliani told host Bill Hemmer. "I counted five times [where Chauvin] was warned that he might be killing him [Floyd]. That's a lot of warning. That's a lot of intent.
"Every single time he [Chauvin] was told, 'He's not breathing,' he had a chance to reflect and decide, 'Am I going to continue to have him not breathing ... or am I going to stop?' Four, five times, he made the decision to do that. That's a lot of intent. That's just as good as premeditation the day before."
On Monday, Floyd's family released an independent autopsy report that stated Floyd died of asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain. Preliminary results from the official autopsy, which were included in a criminal complaint against Chauvin filed Friday, said officials had found nothing "to support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.
Earlier in the interview, Giuliani had slammed Democratic officials in several states and cities who he described as ineffective at quashing the rioting that has took place in more than a dozen cities over the weekend.
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"[We've had] six days of lawlessness with little interruption by the police: Essentially the police might as well be cameramen for you, they sit there, they get pounded, they get pelted; 40 Secret Service agents get seriously injured, 50 or 60 police officers have been seriously injured," Giuliani said. "I never would have accepted that when I was mayor of the city.
"The protest never would've gone beyond one day. These incompetents have stretched this to six days, because they don't have the fortitude to arrest [rioters]. The first person who throws a brick gets arrested. The second person, then the third one, then the fourth one, and it goes away."
"I find these to be completely the fault of week incompetent, progressive Democrats who have their heads in the clouds," Giuliani added.
Giuliani specifically called out current New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio, whose daughter Chiara was among those arrested during protests in Manhattan Saturday night.
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He noted that only days earlier, de Blasio was threatening strong punishment for New Yorkers who failed to follow social distancing guidelines amid the coronavirus pandemic, even promising to have police "pull" rogue swimmers out of the water.
"Think of the absurdity," Giuliani said. "Now we have thousands of people in the street not socially distancing, throwing Molotov cocktails, beating up policemen, and they don't get arrested."