White House divided on Trump addressing racial
tensions
The infighting over a formal speech reflects the
bigger question of how to soothe a country also grappling with a health and
economic crisis.
By NANCY
COOK
05/31/2020
07:44 PM EDT
As protests
continue to flare across the country, President Donald Trump and his top aides
cannot settle on the next steps the White House should take to ease tensions
after the latest death of an African American man detained by a white police
officer.
White House
chief of staff Mark Meadows has been pushing for the president to deliver a
formal address to the nation to emphasize his support for law and order and
police officers, a familiar trope for the Republican Party and one that
typically plays well with its base.
Trump’s
senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, along with several other top
aides, argued against such a move, fearing the tone could alienate key voters
ahead of the November election, including African Americans whose support the
administration has been trying to court. An address would also detract from the
president’s message of trying to restart the economy as quickly as possible,
allies said. The president’s last formal address — in mid-March from the Oval
Office, dealing with the growing coronavirus crisis — was not viewed internally
as a success, since the White House had to later clarify several points from
the hastily written speech, which Trump appeared uncomfortable delivering.
This
infighting over a potential speech signifies a much broader question facing the
White House, according to interviews with a half-dozen senior administration
officials and Republicans close to the administration: How can the president
soothe and lead a nation at a moment when more than 100,000 Americans have died
from the coronavirus, another 40 million are unemployed, and protests are
raging through the U.S. after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last
Monday?
Amid this
swirl of crises, the Trump administration and its staffers have struggled to
find the right tone and path to calm the country. The president keeps veering
between expressing condolences for the death of Floyd, as he did in Florida at
the SpaceX launch on Saturday, and then tweeting out far harsher rhetoric on
protesters, looters or the Democratic leaders of the cities in which the
protests have occurred. Trump made no public appearances on Sunday and did not
leave the White House.
By Sunday
morning, he appeared to have found a new target and scapegoat by pinning blame
for the protests on Antifa for the protests, a loose collection of radical
groups that define themselves by their opposition to fascism.
“Congratulations
to our National Guard for the great job they did immediately upon arriving in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, last night,” Trump tweeted. “The ANTIFA led anarchists,
among others, were shut down quickly. Should have been done by Mayor on first
night and there would have been no trouble!”
In addition
to starting to cast protesters as lawless individuals or anarchists, the
president and his staff have been mulling others ways to respond by hoping that
federal law enforcement can possibly charge the four white former police
officers involved in the killing of Floyd — they have all since been fired — or
by bringing African-American leaders to the White House. One of the four former
officers, Derek Chauvin, has been charged with third-degree murder and
manslaughter.
Bashing
Antifa is expected to be a familiar refrain this week from the Trump White
House. Trump previewed this by tweeting on Sunday that he intended to designate
Antifa a domestic terrorist organization, a move that critics say he lacks the
legal authority to do since Antifa is not, in fact, an organization.
Aides still
have not settled on the best course of action, as the president continues to
hear advice from top staffers, Republicans close to the White House, political
advisers and members of his reelection campaign. New polling out Sunday from
The Washington Post and ABC News only added a sense of urgency, since it showed
Trump trailing Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, by
10 percentage points nationally, whereas two months ago the same poll showed
the two candidates just a few points apart.
Several
White House aides and Trump allies have argued over the weekend against any
type of Oval Office address in the coming days.
“The
protests are not just connected to the death of George Floyd. They are
connected to the overall frustration with the economic downturn and
coronavirus,” said Jason Miller, a former senior communications adviser to
Trump’s 2016 campaign. “There are no magical words of unity that can fix
someone’s missing paycheck, or no magical words of unity on George Floyd.”
White House
aides were very pleased by the president’s speech in Florida at the SpaceX
launch, where he spent the first several minutes of his remarks talking about
the death of Floyd. Aides thought it struck the perfect balance between
condemning the death and supporting law enforcement, and were disappointed that
the remarks, which started in the early evening on Saturday, did not receive
more attention from Americans or the national news networks.
The
president’s national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, praised the Space X
remarks during a Sunday morning TV appearance but declined to say whether Trump
would give a formal address this week.
“Look, the
president addresses the country almost every day,” O’Brien said. “He’s been
very accessible to them. And I think he’s made it very clear in his initial
Twitter responses to the terrible killing and death of Mr. Floyd and his common
sense that he’s — he’s accessible to the country every day. So, whether he has
an address from the Oval or he speaks to the press, he’s accessible and will
continue to be accessible to the country and give his views on these events,
which are — which are tragic for the country.”
The White
House press office did not respond to requests for comment on Sunday.
Prominent
African American supporters of the president said they had not heard from the
White House about attending any upcoming events. Bruce LeVell, a member of
Trump’s 2020 Advisory Council and an Atlanta business owner, praised Trump’s
response, including his decision to ask the FBI and the Department of Justice
to expedite its investigation into Floyd’s death.
“The
president condemned that behavior right out of the gate,” LeVell said. “I say
this respectfully, but previous administrations took more of a ‘wait-and-see’
approach, like ‘Let’s see what the local DA says.’ Trump said, ‘Let’s get Barr
on this,’” referring to Attorney General William Barr.
The lone
African American Republican senator, Tim Scott of South Carolina, took a more
nuanced approach. In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Scott said some of the
president’s tweets with phrases about responding to protesters with vicious
police dogs, or how looting would lead to shooting, were not “constructive.”
“I spoke
with the president yesterday morning, and he and I had a good conversation
about what are the next steps,” Scott said. “I told him what I’m going to tell
you, which is, ‘Mr. President, it helps us when you focus on the death, the
unjustified, in my opinion, the criminal death of George Floyd. Those tweets
are very helpful. It is helpful when you say what you said yesterday, which is
that it’s important for us to recognize the benefit of nonviolent protests. It
is helpful when you respond to my request to have the Department of Justice,
led by Attorney General Barr, have a commission and a conversation around race
and justice in this nation. Mr. President, it is helpful when you lead with
compassion.’ And the tweets that I saw yesterday were far better.”
The
pressure on the White House to respond to the protests will only continue this
week, as the nation looks to Washington for leadership. Friday will bring
potentially more bad news, when the Department of Labor will unveil the latest
national unemployment statistics.
Advisers
have warned that the unemployment rate could rise from its current 14.7 percent
to over 20 percent. Aides also plan to closely watch the coronavirus infection
rates and how those play out as every state eases its standards on social
distancing and the reopening of local businesses.
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