As anti-racist protests continued for a fourth night in Washington, DC, the Secret Service rushed President Donald Trump to an underground bunker, according to a number of media reports.
Trump and his family were never in any real danger on Friday when they were relocated but the incident rattled them, sources told The New York Times, which was the first news outlet to report the extraordinary safety measure.
Trump spent about an hour in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, as the bunker is known, The Associated Press reported. The facility was established to protect presidents during emergencies such as terrorist attacks. First lady Melania Trump and their son, Barron, accompanied the president to the bunker, per CNN.
Trump flew to Florida on Saturday to view the SpaceX launch and was back in the White House on Sunday, but he remained out of sight as demonstrators again gathered in cities across the US to protest the death of George Floyd.
Late on Sunday, police in Washington began using tear gas on protesters who were allegedly setting fires and vandalising buildings, NBC News reported.
Trump hunkered down in a bunker was a radically different image than the one he presented on Twitter. Early on Saturday, he boasted about watching the action from the windows of the White House the previous night:
The Times reported that some aides had pressed Trump to do a national address about the protests on Sunday, but he decided to share his thoughts on Twitter instead: