This was published 4 years ago
The madness and sadness of America
In his 3.5 years as a political correspondent in the US, Matthew Knott lived through and reported on one of the most tumultuous times in American history - including Trump and COVID, to the often violent protests that broke out following the death of George Floyd. Matthew says "As a human being, I was alarmed by much of what I was witnessing. As a journalist, I was electrified."
1/37
Matthew Knott reporting at the White House in 2021.Credit:Matthew Knott
2/37
Supporters of President Donald Trump, including Jacob Chansley, centre with fur and horned hat, are confronted by Capitol Police officers outside the Senate Chamber inside the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. Congress held a joint session to ratify President-elect Joe Biden's 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. Pro-Trump protesters entered the US Capitol building after mass demonstrations.Credit:AP
3/37
The face of President Donald Trump appears on large screens as supporters participate in a rally in Washington. The House committee investigating the violent January 6 Capitol insurrection, with its latest round of subpoenas in September 2021, may uncover the degree to which Trump, his campaign and the White House were involved in planning the rally that preceded the riot.Credit:AP
4/37
Security forces draw their guns as rioters loyal to President Donald Trump try to break into the House of Representatives chamber to disrupt the Electoral College process at the Capitol in Washington. January 6, 2021.Credit:
5/37
A six-storey building under construction across from Minnehaha Centre burns out of control on May 28, 2020, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Violent protests after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died as police arrested him, rocked a Minneapolis neighbourhood for a second straight night as angry crowds looted stores, set fires and left a path of damage that stretched for miles.Credit:Getty
6/37
Protesters cheer as the Third Police Precinct burns behind them on May 28, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Unrest continued after the death of George Floyd and police abandoned the precinct building, allowing protesters to set fire to it.Credit:Getty
7/37
Olivia Grant hugs her grandmother, Mary Grace Sileo through a plastic drop cloth hung up on a homemade clothes line during Memorial Day Weekend on May 24, 2020 in Wantagh, New York. It was the first time they had contact of any kind since the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown started in late February 2020.Credit:Getty
8/37
Kyle Rittenhouse breaks down on the stand as he testifies about his encounter with the late Joseph Rosenbaum during his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on November 10, 2021 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse was accused of shooting three demonstrators, killing two of them, during a night of unrest that erupted in Kenosha after a police officer shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back while being arrested in August 2020. Rittenhouse, from Antioch, Illinois, was 17 at the time of the shooting and armed with an assault rifle. He faced counts of felony homicide and felony attempted homicide.Credit:Getty
9/37
President Donald Trump holds a Bible outside St John's Church across Lafayette Park from the White House, in Washington. Reports of hateful and violent speech on Facebook poured in on the night of May 28 after Trump hit send on a social media post warning that looters who joined protests following Floyd's death last year would be shot.Credit:AP
10/37
Army Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, XVIII Airborne Corps, boards a C-17 cargo plane at Hamid Karzai International Airport August 30, 2021 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Donahue is the final American service member to depart the country, completing the US mission to evacuate American citizens, Afghan special immigrant visa applicants and vulnerable Afghans.Credit:Getty
11/37
The Samaritan's Purse Field hospital set up to treat COVID-19 cases in New York in 2020.Credit:Samaritan's Purse
12/37
Students hug at a memorial at Oxford High School in Oxford, Michigan, Wednesday, December 1, 2021. Authorities say a 15-year-old sophomore opened fire at Oxford High School, killing four students and wounding seven other people.Credit:AP
13/37
President Joe Biden turns to leave the podium after speaking about the end of the war in Afghanistan on August. 31, 2021.Credit:AP
14/37
President Donald Trump removes his mask after returning to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre on October 5, 2020. Trump spent three days hospitalised for coronavirus.Credit:Getty
15/37
Rudy Giuliani speaks to the press inside the Republican National Committee headquarters on November 19, 2020 in Washington, DC about various lawsuits related to the 2020 election. President Donald Trump was continuing to push baseless claims about election fraud and dispute the results of the 2020 election.Credit:Getty
16/37
A woman reacts to being hit with pepper spray as protesters clash with US Park Police after they attempted to pull down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square, Washington DC on June 22, 2020. Protests continued around the country after the deaths of African Americans while in police custody.Credit:Getty
17/37
Members of the National Guard rest in a hallway of the US Capitol building underneath a bust of former US president Abraham Lincoln on Wednesday, January 13, 2021. The US House was preparing to vote on a history-making second impeachment of Donald Trump,Credit:Bloomberg
18/37
Gun law reform advocates at the White House in the wake of a Florida school shooting, February 19, 2018.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
19/37
President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 Summit in Hamburg on July 7, 2017. Trump signed on August 2 what he called a "seriously flawed" bill imposing new sanctions on Russia, pressured by his Republican Party not to move on his own toward a warmer relationship with Moscow in light of Russian actions.Credit:AP
20/37
Mourners pay their respects during a ceremony memorialising US Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, as an urn with his cremated remains lies in honour at the centre of the Capitol Rotunda, February 3, 2021. Sicknick died on January 7, 2021, the day after he responded to the storming of the Capitol.Credit:Getty