Minneapolis Mayor Blasts Trump's 'Weakness' After President Criticized 'Total Lack of Leadership'

At a news conference in the pre-dawn hours on Friday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey slammed his left hand on his podium while responding to President Donald Trump's pointed criticism Thursday night, as protests and riots over the death of George Floyd continued to roil the Minnesota city.

Floyd died after a police officer knelt with his knee on Floyd's neck for minutes while arresting him Monday, even as Floyd pleaded that he couldn't breathe. Video of the arrest, which seemingly shows Floyd falling unconscious, has sparked protests in Minneapolis and around the country this week.

Tensions escalated Thursday night when a police precinct was lit on fire and the president responded on Twitter, saying he'd send in the military and "when the looting starts, the shooting starts." (Twitter hid that message, saying it glorified violence.)

Trump also directed blame at Frey, a Democrat who the president has targeted online before.

He tweeted that Minneapolis had a "total lack of leadership" and called on Frey to "get his act together and bring the City under control."

Frey, speaking to reporters shortly before 2 a.m. on Friday, bubbled over in visible frustration as a reporter read Trump's tweet to him.

“Let me say this: Weakness is refusing to take responsibility for your own actions. Weakness is pointing your finger at somebody else at a time of crisis,” Frey, 38, fired back. "Donald Trump knows nothing about the strength of Minneapolis. We are strong as hell. This is a difficult time, yes, but you better be damn sure that we’re going to get through this."

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey

Trump targeted Frey last October after the president's re-election campaign alleged the city of Minneapolis was price-gouging the Trump campaign, who held a rally at the city's Target Center on Oct. 10.

The campaign complained Frey, labeled a "left-winger resister," and Minneapolis were hiking the cost for providing security at the arena and Frey was allegedly "abusing his power in an attempt to block the president's supporters from seeing him speak."

“To say the least, it’s a strange feeling to wake up in the morning to the president of the United States tweeting about our city and me as the mayor,” Frey told Politico last year.

“Probably no one outside of Minnesota knew who Mayor Jacob Frey was before this week, and Donald Trump just elevated his profile in a major way,” Ken Martin, the chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer–Labor Party, told Politico then.

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Frey, a former collegiate track athlete, quickly elevated his own political profile in the years after moving to Minneapolis in 2009 following a marathon there. The budding politician relocated to the city from his native Virginia, according to a 2019 W Magazine profile, and won a seat on the city council in 2013. Five years later, he was sworn in as the city's mayor.

He announced in March that he and his second wife, Sarah Clarke, a local lobbyist, were expecting their first child together come September. His at-home announcement came less than a week after the city went into a state of emergency amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Jim Mone/AP/Shutterstock Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey

David Sherman/NBAE/Getty Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey

Frey has called for the four former police officers involved in Floyd's arrest to be criminally charged and said Tuesday their firing was "the right call."

"If most people, particularly people of color, had done what a police officer did late Monday, they’d already be behind bars," Frey, an attorney who graduated from Villanova Law School in 2009, tweeted Wednesday, a day before Trump lashed out at local leaders and protesters in Minneapolis.

"We can’t turn a blind eye. George Floyd deserves justice," Frey wrote. "The black community deserves justice. His friends and family deserve justice."