Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson didn’t hold back during his video message directed at President Donald Trump following his heartless response to millions of protesters standing in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. In the eight-minute video posted to Instagram on June 3, the actor, 48, called out the president asking “where are you?” The Rock went on to describe how the nation is “begging and pleading with its arms out just wanting to be heard.”
So many of The Rock’s impassioned words were echoed in the caption to his Instagram post. “Where is our compassionate leader? The leader who unifies and inspires our country at our most painful time when we need it the most,” The Rock wrote, adding his hope that “maybe one day that galvanizing leader will emerge.”
The Rock’s emotional video comes days after President Trump threatened military action in the wake of protests following unarmed Black man George Floyd‘s tragic death at the hands of Minneapolis police. President Trump barely addressed media outlets on the subject in the Rose Garden on June 1, before walking to St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo op with a Bible. As Trump made his walk to the location, federal police teargassed and used rubber bullets and pepper spray to disperse roughly 1,000 protesters in Lafayette Square, without “provocation”, according to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Amidst all of President Trump’s violent rhetoric, one of his former employees has fervently come out against the Commander in Chief. Former United States Defense Secretary, James Mattis, penned a scathing rebuke of Trump’s handling of ongoing protests on June 3. “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us,” Mattis wrote.
He also likened Trump’s strategy to the former Nazi regime, writing, “the Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’ We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis — confident that we are better than our politics.”
Many public figures and celebrities have used their platform to show staunch opposition to the president’s vitriol. Cardi B, John Cusak, and more have called out Trump for threatening Martial Law on peaceful protests that have turned violent due to police interference. For hist part, presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden shared in an address, “I won’t fan the flames of hate; I will seek to heal racial wounds. A country is crying out for leadership. Leadership that can unite us, leadership that brings us together, leadership that can recognize the pain and deep grief of communities that have had a knee on their neck for a long time.”