Remarks and an Exchange With Reporters Prior to Departure for Merritt Island, Florida

The President. Hello, everybody. We'll be going to the Space Center. We're going to be, hopefully, seeing a great launch. It's about a 50/50 shot. But it's important, I think, as President to be there. What we've done with NASA is amazing. And we've brought it back from the dead. It was not essentially functioning, and now it's one of the great centers in the world. This is the greatest center in the world.

So I think I have an obligation to be there, and it's very exciting, even though it's about a 50/50 shot. Otherwise, it will be postponed until Wednesday, I understand. Not Sunday, but Wednesday. But we'll see what happens.

So we look forward to being there. Some of you are going with us.

Any questions?

Q. Mr. President, are you asking protesters—[inaudible]?

The President's Supporters

Q. Mr. President, are you—with your tweets today, are you concerned that you might be stoking more racial violence or more racial discord?

The President. No, no. Not at all. MAGA says "Make America Great Again." These are people that love our country. I have no idea if they're going to be here. I was just asking. But I have no idea if they're going to be here. But MAGA is "Make America Great Again." By the way, they love African American people. They love Black people. MAGA loves Black people.

I heard that MAGA wanted to be there; a lot of MAGA was going to be there. I have no idea if that's true or not. But they love our country. Remember that: MAGA it's just an expression, but MAGA loves our country.

Okay.

The President's Supporters/U.S. Secret Service/Demonstrations and Civil Unrest Following the Death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Q. Are you calling them to hold a counter protest at all?

The President. No, I don't want to—I don't care. I mean, I don't care. I want to just thank, though, the Secret Service. They were so professional last night. It was incredible. They were so professional. They were really great. Really great.

Any other questions? Anybody else going?

Q. Mr. President——

The President. By the way, I want to say it again: Secret Service did a job last night that was incredible. Minneapolis—I love that city. As you know, I've had very great success there. Almost won the State for the first time in many, many decades. But almost won that State, and it's a great State, Minnesota. They've got to get tougher. They've got to get tougher. They've got to be strong. Honor the memory of George Floyd. Honor his memory. They have to get tougher. And by being tougher, they will be honoring his memory. But they cannot let that happen.

When I saw policemen, run by a mayor who I think is probably a very good person—but he's a radical-left mayor—when I saw the policemen running out of a police station, for that police station to be abandoned and taken over, I've never seen anything so horrible and stupid in my life.

Q. [Inaudible]

The President. I've never seen anything so bad. And then, I see them trying to justify it.

Look, they've got to be tough, they've got to be smart. We have our military ready, willing, and able if they ever want to call our military. But we can have troops to the ground very quickly if they ever want our military.

They're using their National Guard right now—the, as you know—I guess, as you probably know, they have their National Guard out. We can have our military there very quickly. They've got to be tough. They've got to be strong. They've got to be respected, because these people, the Antifa—there's a lot of radical-left, bad people. And they've got to be taught that you can't do this.

So I'm going now to watch a great launch, and we'll see how we do. Thank you.

Q. Mr. President——

The President. Thank you very much.