Is this as bad as it looks or am I missing a piece of information?

Trump announced that he was going to speak in the Rose Garden at 6:15. Curfew in D.C. tonight is at 7 p.m. by order of the mayor. Protesters had been demonstrating in Lafayette Park, across from the White House, all afternoon.

Shortly before Trump went to the podium, the attorney general came out towards the park to chat with law enforcement.

AG Bill Barr just showed up with his security detail to seemingly take a look at the protest in Lafayette Square. He’s talking to law enforcement officials here. Right before, much more security came to the front line. pic.twitter.com/dghUPk7d9L

— Alexander Marquardt (@MarquardtA) June 1, 2020

Soon afterward, all hell broke loose:

The area outside the White House looks like a warzone right now pic.twitter.com/MgoUnrPh6l

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 1, 2020

Trump is set to deliver a speech in minutes like two blocks away from here pic.twitter.com/NrtzTqJhz9

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 1, 2020

"Do you see this?" a protester asks @CNN's camera. "We're doing nothing!" pic.twitter.com/M5HQyaQCwS

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 1, 2020

Tear gas just deployed at 16th & H Streets, police in riot gear & on horseback pushed the crowd back to Connecticut Av #dcprotest pic.twitter.com/LOd2UC5nmH

— Ken Duffy (@KenDuffyNews) June 1, 2020

Police outside the WH just repeatedly bashed a cameraman as they pushed back protestors – just now on @ABC7News pic.twitter.com/XyE2sI6I3v

— Ben Siegel (@bensiegel) June 1, 2020

Possible information I’m missing: Were the protesters being violent, requiring a police response? Reporters on the scene say they weren’t. So what are the police doing going in there like a goon squad to run them out of a place they were entitled to be until 7 p.m.?

Trump began his speech tonight by calling himself a defender of law and order and an ally of peaceful protesters. D.C. cops were running peaceful protesters out of a public space at that very moment just a block or two today, apparently on Bill Barr’s orders. Bbecause they created an “unhelpful” backdrop to the president’s speech.

Trump: I am your president of Law and Order and an ally of all peaceful protestors pic.twitter.com/p0kMVE0O8l

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 1, 2020

Oh, and because Trump — with Bible in hand — and his aides wanted a photo op at St. John’s church across the street, which was partially burned last night:

Secretary of Defense Esper and General Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, are with President Trump as he walks across Lafayette Square to the boarded-up Saint John's Church.

— Mike Glenn (@mrglenn) June 1, 2020

BREAKING: Lafayette Square Park was cleared of protesters to allow Trump to walk through here. #dcprotest pic.twitter.com/BJbbL6M81l

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) June 1, 2020

He had no more right to the park than the protesters did. And the cops had no authority to remove them before 7, especially as aggressively as they did, unless they were behaving violently.

The read as I write this on political Twitter is that he *wants* a provocation. He invited the antagonism of pushing the protesters out of the park, knowing that it’s likely to set people off tonight and encourage even more rage. Then he’ll get to send in the troops, leading to God knows what, and strut around proclaiming that he’s Mr. Law and Order. At the very least he’ll get to show that he’s not cowering in his bunker. For the moment.

This will backfire. It’s true that voters want the rioting to end but I think they want all of the upheaval of this era to end, and he’s the face of it. The riots will be a distant memory in November but the residue will be a sense of endless destabilization, often abetted by the president willingly or through incompetence, that’s grown somehow tiresome and dangerous all at once. It won’t be forgotten at the polls that he always sought maximum conflict.

Update: If you’re going to tear-gas protesters because they’re in the way of a photo op to impress your base, there’s no sense being subtle about that photo op.

I remember being a kid in catechism classes before my First Communion. The nun who taught the class was talking about the commandments and what they mean. She asked what it meant to take the Lord's name in vain.
/1

— IncitementToResurrectionHat (@Popehat) June 1, 2020

/3 I cannot conceive that any sane or honest person could look at this and think that it is done to glorify God or for His purposes.

I suppose there is no commandment, yet, forbidding me to take Trump's name in vain. pic.twitter.com/EspCxpR1Mg

— IncitementToResurrectionHat (@Popehat) June 1, 2020

Ask him to quote a single line from the Bible from memory. Except “an eye for an eye,” I mean. We know he knows that one.