Violent acts against the nation's police officers, such the shootings Thursday of two
San Diego police officers are the result of "failed leadership" that has made "the police and law enforcement agencies into the bad guys," Donald Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort said Friday.
"Well, as Mr. Trump has said, what's going on in America is a result of really seven-and-one-half years of failed leadership and too often making the police and law enforcement agencies into the bad guys," Manafort told
Fox News' "Fox & Friends."
"They're not the bad guys. Now everybody has gotten the right message, including the administration, but until there's strong leadership and leadership that gives direction to the country, you'll continue to have this kind of lawlessness, unfortunately."
Trump will most likely have a statement from the campaign trail Friday on the shootings, in which one officer was killed and another was injured, "if nothing else, to express his concern and sympathy for the families," Manafort said.
On Thursday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani told
Fox News uniformed police officers were not permitted to patrol the Democratic National Convention, and Manafort said Friday there is an "attitude embedded into the Democratic leadership."
"That is the problem. The law enforcement agencies and the first responders are not given the respect by the system," said Manafort.
He also complained that there is a "lawlessness" in the administration in the way the Obama administration has dealt with the FBI and exonerated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton after FBI Director James Comey "presented [evidence] that she was guilty."
"There's an attitude that law enforcement is the bad guys and this justice is not equal for all," said Manafort.
Moving on to the convention, Clinton said, in her acceptance speech on Thursday that Trump has taken the Republican Party "from morning in America to midnight in America," and Manafort said she makes such attacks "because she has no message."
"She has to try and confuse by making these kinds of attacks," he said. "If it's midnight in America, it's because of the 7-and-a-half years because of the Obama/Clinton administration."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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