President Trump was reportedly rushed to the White House’s secure bunker on Friday evening after protesters began dismantling a temporary barricade outside the building, despite his claims that he visited the bunker to “inspect” it.
The Washington Post reported Wednesday that a law enforcement official familiar with the situation said the president, the first lady and their son Barron were rushed to the bunker around 7 p.m. after the Secret Service upgraded the security situation from yellow to red.
The move was prompted by several individuals who passed fences that were erected near the border of the White House lawn and the Treasury Department, according to the Post. The Secret Service declined to comment to the Post and typically does not comment on security incidents.
Trump offered a very different description of the situation to Fox News host Brian Kilmeade during a radio interview earlier Wednesday, disputing media reports that he was moved because of a security situation.
“It was a false report,” Trump said. “I went down during the day, and I was there for a tiny, little, short period of time, and it was much more for inspection. These problems are during the night, not during the day.”
The president went on to insist that he was not told by Secret Service agents to head to the bunker due to a security incident.
“Nope, they didn’t tell me that at all,” Trump said. “They said it would be a good time to go down, take a look, because maybe sometime you’re going to need it.”
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment from The Hill.
Protests have raged for days across the U.S. in response to the death of George Floyd, a Minneapolis man who died in police custody last week. Video of the incident shows Floyd, a black man who was apparently unarmed at the time, handcuffed on the ground while an officer knelt on his neck for several minutes.
Trump was the subject of bipartisan criticism on Monday after protesters in Washington’s Lafayette Square were aggressively cleared by police, allowing him to walk from the White House to nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo-op.