“When the history of the Trump presidency is written, the clash with protesters that preceded President Trump’s walk across Lafayette Square may be remembered as one of its defining moments.”

The New York Times has the definitive account on how it came together.

“President Trump’s vow to ‘dominate’ demonstrators protesting police brutality has mobilized the full might of federal law enforcement, from border agencies and the Drug Enforcement Administration to F.B.I. hostage rescue teams, working alongside local law enforcement, the military police and the National Guard,” the New York Times reports.

“In all, nearly a dozen federal agencies and components have joined in Mr. Trump’s effort to quell protests incited by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and ostensibly to put an end to rioting and looting — and determine whether anarchists and other extremist groups had infiltrated the protests.”

“The scenes have been disturbingly familiar to CIA analysts accustomed to monitoring scenes of societal unraveling abroad — the massing of protesters, the ensuing crackdowns and the awkwardly staged displays of strength by a leader determined to project authority,” the Washington Post reports.

“In interviews and posts on social media in recent days, current and former U.S. intelligence officials have expressed dismay at the similarity between events at home and the signs of decline or democratic regression they were trained to detect in other nations.”

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds 64% of Americans sympathize with nationwide protests over the death of an unarmed black man in police custody and 55% disapprove of President Trump’s response to the unrest.

Gabriel Sherman: “Confronting a failed presidency after 100,000-plus COVID deaths and the protests that are still convulsing the nation this week, Donald Trump is venting to West Wing officials that Democratic governors are allowing civil unrest to rage in American cities to damage his reelection campaign.”

Said a Trump adviser: “He feels the blue-state governors are letting it burn because it hurts him. It’s a lot like how he sees coronavirus.”

“Trump’s sense of victimhood, and his view that the crisis ignited by George Floyd’s gruesome death is largely a political problem, have resulted in a shambolic White House response, veering from Trump’s retreat to the bunker as the protests neared the White House to the culmination of police using teargas on peaceful protestors so that he could walk through a park to stage a photo op in front of St. John’s Church.”

Said one former West Wing official: “He’s paralyzed.”

Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, writing in The Atlantic:

“It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel—including members of the National Guard—forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president’s visit outside St. John’s Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump’s leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.”

“Whatever Trump’s goal in conducting his visit, he laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country, gave succor to the leaders of other countries who take comfort in our domestic strife, and risked further politicizing the men and women of our armed forces.”

“There was little good in the stunt.”