AG百家乐在线官网

After nearly four years covering the extremes of Donald Trump's presidency, this felt like the symbolic culmination of just how unpredictable and unprecedented his tenure has been.

In the middle of a national crisis, with protesters demanding an end to racial injustice and police brutality, he finally decided to address the nation.

As he was preparing, we were outside in the middle of a peaceful demonstration, filming as people from all over the nation shouted: "I can't breathe" - the final words of George Floyd.

But as he prepared for the speech, out of nowhere, federal authorities lunged towards the crowd and started forcibly removing them.

One reporter was hit live on air. Flash bangs, rubber bullets and people describing feeling the effects of tear gas. It was chaos.

We couldn't see a pocket of provocation - but what ensued was immediate panic and fearful screams as people tried to run away.

However, a statement from the Park Police said: "As many of the protesters became more combative, continued to throw projectiles, and attempted to grab officers' weapons, officers then employed the use of smoke canisters and pepper balls.

"No tear gas was used by USPP officers or other assisting law enforcement partners to close the area at Lafayette Park."

In a statement the Trump campaign said: "We also know that police discovered stashes of weapons like glass bottles, baseball bats, and metal poles hidden nearby, which are indeed strange items to have on hand for a 'peaceful' protest'."

Minutes later, President Trump claimed he was an ally of peaceful protesters but what we witnessed was the kind of muscular force he has spent days calling for.

Some speculated this was a cynical attempt to cast a portrait of a baying mob, as he spoke of the need for law and order.

Soon after a path was clear for him to cross the street for a photo-op - clutching a Bible in front of the historic St John's Episcopal Church, visited by every president since James Madison.

But never like this - flanked by National Guard, metres away from those who had lost all faith in his leadership.

The early evening felt very different to the previous nights we had witnessed.

Every corner of the city was covered, was blocked off by riot police and National Guard. Flashing lights everywhere you looked.

It seemed there was finally stability 24 hours after the spectre of the White House engulfed in smoke. There was very little space for the protesters to move.

Like Minneapolis, they appeared to have a handle on things.

But then out of nowhere, hours after the curfew just before midnight and just a few blocks from Pennsylvania Avenue, an erratic moment of eruption.

We could see people running into CVS - it wasn't clear if they'd taken anything, but quickly a string of armed officers, military vehicles, motorbikes and police cars were chasing them down there street.

There were screams filling the air and about 200 protesters running in every direction.

A whole line of officers started firing rounds of tear gas.

We were right by them as they hurriedly tried to catch up with the crowd. Most looked young, many sounded terrified.

Then the incongruous site of an Apple store surrounded by riot police, guns and batons, and roads all engulfed in smoke.

We tried to keep our distance, but I was quickly consumed by the gas, my eyes burning intensely as I struggled to see the road in front.

The street I drive to work every day, where I pass the White House and often think how lucky I am to cover such a fascinating time in American politics, now looked like a war zone.

:: Listen to Divided States on , , , and

What this war in American society will achieve it's impossible to know. But the outrage, the anger, the violence is far from resolved.

It may well end up helping - not hurting - Donald Trump's presidency as he casts this movement as the work of anarchists and the radical left.

They are certainly a section of those taking part, so too are opportunistic criminals.

At the core of this is what I've seen in the wake of so many deaths at the hands of police - deep frustration at the inequities of this country that can't seem to shirk its racist past or pockets of police brutality.

This was not the 2020 I thought I'd be covering. But then, I should have known, discord and division is exactly what we've come to expect.