Several protests groups have packed into an already crowded Atlanta on Monday night ahead of President Donald Trump’s arrival at the College Football Playoff National Championship Game between Alabama and local favorite Georgia.
The Atlanta branch of the NAACP is urged people to wear white to the game and to bring white towels to wave when the president enters the stadium. The white is meant to mock the ‘snowflake’ insult that Trump supporters have made against those who oppose the president.
‘We’re going to make a snowflake turn into a mighty blizzard inside of Mercedes-Benz stadium when Mr. Trump comes,’ Gerald Griggs, a vice president of the Atlanta NAACP, said at a news conference Monday.
Security looks on as fans walk into the CFP National Championship presented by AT&T at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on January 8
WARNING SHOT: With football on his mind, President Donald Trump urged respect for the American flag and the national anthem at a farmers’ convention on Monday
The organization also planned a ‘Twitter storm’ beginning at 6 p.m. and continuing through the end of the game. The plan is to use the hashtag #AllTrumpsLies to highlight what they say are lies told by the president.
Another group, Refuse Fascism ATL, also demonstrated outside CNN’s world headquarters near Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where the game was set to kick off at 8pm. The group planned to ‘take a knee’ there at 6:30pm.
Atlanta police have stated they’ve set up several designated areas for protesters and won’t interfere with demonstrations unless protesters break the law. Local, state and federal law enforcement authorities said last week that they’ve worked for months to develop security plans.
Earlier on Monday, Trump urged respect for the American flag and the national anthem at a farmers’ convention on Monday.
Trump was there to deliver a partisan message about tax cuts and regulation-slashing to America’s largest agriculture group.
However, he began talking about the ‘great American flag’ midway through.
‘We are fighting for our flag. We want our flag respected. We want our flag respected,’ he said twice. ‘And we want our national anthem respected, also,’ Trump added to whoops.
Trump is headed to Mercedes-Benz Stadium for the NCAA college football playoff championship game between Georgia and Alabama this evening
Trump also gave himself a pat on the back Monday for remembering the names of the lawmakers attending the event with him, including Bob Corker, center, who once said that Trump did not have the stability to be president
Kendrick Lamar, the game’s half-time performer, could also take the opportunity to rip the president after saying in October that Trump’s election was a ‘mindf***’ and it is is ‘building the fire’ for him.
A track Lamar released earlier this year, ‘The Heart Part 4,’ hits Trump as a ‘chump’ and claims that Russia is ‘up to something.’
Trump said Monday afternoon in Tennessee that there’s ‘plenty of space for people to express their views and to protest.
‘But love our flag, we love our anthem, and we want to keep it that way,’ the president stated.
Returning to regulations and taxes as quickly as he came to the subject, Trump said he’s halting the regulatory assault on farm families.
In his remarks he noted that most of the benefits of the bill he signed into law before Christmas will go to working families, small businesses and family farmers.
He told salt-of-the-earth American Farm Bureau Federation that every Democrat in Congress opposed the tax reform package, ‘and if the Democrats ever had the chance, the first thing they would do is try to raise your taxes.’
Trump gave himself a pat on the back early on for remembering all of the local officials federal lawmakers who were there to support him.
‘Alright, I’ve done my job now, alright? I’ve done my job. Did I do a good job? Did I leave out anybody? I hope not,’ he said.
Trump is seen boarding Air Force One in Washington before his speech to the American Farm Bureau Federation on Monday
The president’s Nashville speech wass heavy on partisan tax-cut messages – but it was clear that he was already thinking about his next stop = Atlanta to watch the college football championship game
Among the changes in tax law this year that Trump was in Tennessee to tout is a new allowance for businesses, including farmers, to deduct the full cost of new equipment immediately instead of spreading it out over a number of years.
That has been a hit with farmers whose livelihood depends on operating tractors, combines and harvesting machines.
‘And from now on, most family farms and small business owners will be spared the punishment of the deeply unfair estate tax, known as the death tax,’ he said, according to prepared remarks, ‘so you can keep your farms in the family.’
Trump also took a victory lap over his election and his administration’s first-year record of rescinding or canceling 22 federal regulations for each new one put into place.
On Monday, the White House also pushed as a central point a new report to the president on rural communities on the importance of broadband connectivity.
The report calls for expediting federal permitting to allow for broadband internet expansion in rural areas and for making it easier for providers to place cell towers on federal lands.
After Trump promoted his plans to boost economic development in rural communities, he flew to Atlanta to watch the football game. He heads back to Washington this evening.
Alabama Crimson Tide defensive lineman Da’Ron Payne (94) is swarmed by the Alabama offense after catching an early second half touchdown during the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl between the Alabama Crimson Tide and Clemson Tigers
(L-R) OL Justin Shaffer (54), C Lamont Gaillard (53) and OT Kendall Baker (65) of the Georgia Bulldogs celebrate after the Bulldogs victory in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Rose Bowl Game between the Georgia Bulldogs and Oklahoma Sooners
Atlanta police say they worked with the Secret Service on preparations for months before the College Football Championship game between Alabama and Georgia.
Another group, Refuse Fascism ATL, says that before kickoff, they’ll ‘take a knee against Trump’ outside CNN’s world headquarters, in solidarity with athletes who have knelt during the national anthem to protest racial injustice.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson says the halftime song at the College Football Championship game should be ‘We Shall Overcome.’
That’s because he says most of the players for both Georgia and Alabama are black, and they could not have played had the South remained segregated.
Trump won the states of Alabama and Georgia in the 2016 presidential election, but Jackson says his politics and policies are antithetical to Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream for America
Jackson says the big game’s real meaning is that blacks can win on the playing field, but still face racial barriers after they take off their uniforms.
On Monday morning before he left to Georgia the president signed a bill into law that establishes an African American Civil Rights Network within the National Park Service.