The announcement was made amid widespread protests over police brutality and racism, triggered by the death of George Floyd, an African American, by a white police officer in Minneapolis.
The Trump administration has deployed federal forces to crush the protests in cities like, Portland, Oregon, where the federal forces have shown a highly criticized performance in dealing with the demonstrators.
Democrat politicians, and these are the cities where you have the problem. If you look at Chicago, if you look at Detroit, if you look — I mean, look around any of these cities where we have the problems,” Trump said at a press conference this week. “And we're sending them help, but we're really waiting for them to call for the big help, for the big numbers, for the large numbers of people that we have ready, willing and able.”
Hoping to get reelected in the November presidential election, Trump is taking advantage of division in America to energize his base, many of whom are with the police forces.
US Vice President Mike Pence is set to host the event in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, a state that Trump flipped in the 2016 race by less than one percentage point.