Trump likens Minneapolis George Floyd protests to wartime Berlin

President claims television journalist stood in front of burning buildings and referred to protests as ‘friendly’

During a speech at a campaign rally in Michigan, Donald Trump likened Minneapolis during the George Floyd protests to wartime Berlin.

Describing the federal response to the unrest after “a week and a half of terror”, he referenced the media coverage in which an anchor stood in front of a burning and said the protests as “friendly”.

“And over his shoulder it looked like Berlin in its worst day during the war… the worst day they ever had,” said the president.

While Mr Trump said that the footage of which he spoke was from CNN, it was MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi who was filmed in May in Minneapolis describing a protest as “not generally speaking unruly”, while standing in front of a burning building.

Mr Trump may have confused the incident with footage from CNN in August in which a reporter in Kenosha, Wisconsin, provided live coverage from in front of a burning building, while a chyron beneath him said: “Fiery but mostly peaceful protests after police shooting.”

At his rally in Michigan on Friday, Mr Trump spoke confidently about winning Minnesota, a state that the Republican party has not won since 1972.

He appears to attribute his potential success in the state to his law and order message.

“I helped them with that disaster in Minneapolis. We got the guys in there and, what did it take? About 25 minutes and it was over,” he said.

“They should’ve called a long time before. They went through two weeks of hell and that’s what we do … The federal government is always prepared to come in and we will extinguish those problems very, very quickly."

While Mr Trump has made this claim on a number of occasions, a CNN fact check disputes that the president ordered in the National Guard.

Instead it cites documentation showing it was Democrat governor Tim Walz, who has 24 years of service in the Army National Guard, who activated the guard at the request of the mayors of Minneapolis and St Paul.

The RealClear Politics polling average for Minnesota currently has Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden ahead by 4.7 points, but observers became fearful that lead is slipping when an event in the state was added to his schedule for Friday.