Donald Trump launches blistering attack on the Black Lives Matter movement

Donald Trump launched a blistering attack on the Black Lives Matter movement as he courted African American voters in Atlanta on Friday, repeating a number of false and unsubstantiated claims about the protest group.  

“It is really hurting the black community," said Mr Trump, without providing any evidence or context to back up the claim. 

“The stated goal of BLM people is to achieve the destruction of the nuclear family, abolish the police, abolish prisons, abolish border security, abolish capitalism and abolish school choice," the president falsely claimed — none of above are stated positions of the organisation. 

Mr Trump has frequently hit out at Black Lives Matter, a decentralised protest movement that campaigns against police brutality against Black Americans. The movement has risen to national prominence in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd and widespread protests that followed.  

Mr Trump then hit out at major corporations, who he claimed had donated “hundreds of millions of dollars to them” and blamed it on “weakness or fear.”

“These are fools. The big progressive corporations donating to BLM should instead be spending their money helping Black families rebuild from these horrible left-wing riots," he said.

“Wealthy liberal hypocrites want to defund the police in our inner cities while living behind walled compounds, you have got to see how some of these people live, they live pretty well.