Trump, who reversed Obama-era efforts to demilitarize police, now falsely says Obama 'never even tried' to reform policing

• President Donald Trump on Tuesday falsely said that former President Barack Obama "never even tried" to reform policing in the US.
• Trump actually rolled back Obama-era policing reforms, including an executive order aimed at demilitarizing law enforcement. Civil-liberties and human-rights groups condemned the move.
• The president's executive order on policing, unveiled on Tuesday, doesn't go nearly as far as other proposals in Congress and doesn't address protesters' demands.
• Justin Mazzola, a researcher at Amnesty International, told Insider that Trump's new order was largely about presenting the appearance of doing something — without actually accomplishing much.
• The order does not represent "meaningful reform," Mazzola said, describing it as a "whitewash in order to say the administration 'did something' and it doesn't get to the systemic issues that people are out on the street demanding."

As President Donald Trump outlined his executive order on policing in the Rose Garden on Tuesday — in a rambling monologue that was more like one of his campaign rallies than a formal announcement — he falsely claimed that former President Barack Obama "never even tried" to reform law enforcement during his tenure.

"President Obama and Vice President Biden never even tried to fix this during their eight-year period," Trump said as he discussed bringing about change to policing. "The reason they didn't try is because they had no idea how to do it. And it is a complex situation."

But Trump actually rolled back Obama-era efforts aimed at quelling police brutality, including an executive order aimed at demilitarizing the police.

In 2014, after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, people across the US looked on in horror as protests over the killing were met by police officers equipped like soldiers.

Since the 1990s, billions of dollars worth of surplus military gear and weapons have been transferred to police departments across the US under the 1033 program, created by Congress in 1989 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

After Ferguson, Obama in 2015 signed an executive order banning the transfer of certain military equipment to police. The banned items included tracked armored vehicles, bayonets, grenade launchers, ammunition of .50-caliber or higher, and some types of camouflage uniforms, the Washington Post reported in May 2015.

In August 2017, Trump rolled back this executive order, effectively endorsing the militarization of police.

"I am here to announce that President Trump is issuing an executive order that will make it easier to protect yourselves and your communities. He is rescinding restrictions from the prior administration that limited your agencies' ability to get equipment through federal programs, including life saving gear like Kevlar vests and helmets and first responder and rescue equipment like what they're using in Texas right now," then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at the time.

The move sparked fierce criticism from civil liberties and human rights groups, who have long warned the militarization of police increases the probability of the use of excessive force, and continues to be a point of controversy.

"We have witnessed firsthand what the continued militarization of our police looks like. Six years after Ferguson nothing has changed — we saw police in cities across the country greet protesters as if they are the 'enemy' — in militarized equipment and vehicles. Rather than opening dialogue with protesters and de-escalating situations, this only raises tensions and makes violence more likely," Justin Mazzola, deputy director of research at Amnesty International USA, told Insider on Tuesday.

"However, Trump's overturning of President Obama's Executive Order on the militarization of law enforcement, which limited and provided better oversight of the 1033 program, is just but one example of the Trump administration's rollback of progress," Mazzola added, citing the termination of consent decrees for police departments found to have violated people's civil rights, the cessation of engagement in reforms outlined in the Task Force on 21st Century Policing, the controversial pardoning of former Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and Trump's "law and order" rhetoric, which is reminiscent of the Richard Nixon era.

—Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) June 16, 2020

Mazzola went on to say that Trump's new executive order on policing does not represent "meaningful reform," describing it as a "whitewash in order to say the administration 'did something' and it doesn't get to the systemic issues that people are out on the street demanding."

Trump's executive order on policing is about optics

Trump's executive order is low on substance and does not go nearly as far as proposals put forward by activists and congressional lawmakers in both parties.

While there is bipartisan support for an outright ban on choke holds, for example, Trump's order does not embrace that position. "As part of this new credentialing process, choke holds will be banned — except for if an officer's life is at risk," Trump said while outlining the order.

The order calls for the creation of a national database to track police misconduct. It also emphasizes the need for the increased involvement of mental-health professionals in policing to help deal with nonviolent situations involving issues such homelessness and addiction. Additionally, the executive order seeks to use federal grants to incentivize departments to reach certain standards on their use of force.

But the activists who've flooded America's streets following the brutal death of George Floyd have called for much more, including the defunding of police departments and the reallocation of resources to other areas of concern. Floyd died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds.

Trump's approval rating has been tanking amid backlash over his botched handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed over 116,000 Americans, and controversial response to the protest and unrest over Floyd's death. The president has condoned the use of force against protesters in Minneapolis, including the deployment of tear gas and other violence by the National Guard, describing it as a "beautiful scene." Trump said the National Guard's actions were "like a knife cutting butter."

In this context, Trump's executive order is more so about optics than embracing substantive changes.

"I think it is a slap in the face of everyone who has been out protesting around the world for the past several weeks," civil rights attorney David Henderson told CNN on Tuesday of Trump's executive order on policing.

As Americans demand greater accountability in relation to law enforcement, Trump spent much of his Tuesday remarks on his policing executive order offering a full-throated defense of police.

Trump is "skirting around the edges and pretending to 'do something,'" with this order, Mazzola said, pointing to proposals in Congress such as the PEACE Act, which Amnesty International has specifically endorsed, and the recently introduced Justice in Policing Act in the House as more meaningful ways forward that would strike at the heart of the need for systemic reform.

As Trump's Republican allies in Congress praise the order, Democratic leaders on Tuesday said it doesn't go far enough. "The President's Executive Order falls seriously short of what is required to combat the epidemic of racial injustice & police brutality that is murdering Black Americans," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a tweet on Tuesday.