GOP senators urged the president to ease tensions — not inflame them.
President Donald Trump spent Monday further fanning the flames of confrontation between protesters and police. And some Republicans are urging the president to extinguish them.
Against a backdrop of police officers with riot gear ringing the Capitol as well as protesters chanting “I can’t breathe” and “hands up don’t shoot,” Senate Republicans called for a far gentler touch than the president has displayed so far.
Some said they’d like to hear him make a national address, a move Trump had avoided for days despite deepening nationwide angst. Others implored him to empathize with those outraged over the deaths of George Floyd and other black Americans at the hands of police, even as he acted to curb riots and looting in big cities.
“We are obviously in a divisive situation right now that’s escalating, and I think he needs to make more unifying comments,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W. Va.).
“The country is looking for healing and calm. And I think the president needs to project that in his tone. He masters that sometimes,” said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S. D.). “That’s the tone he needs to strike right now.”
Their pleadings followed a day’s worth of presidential grievances and inflammatory rhetoric that caused many in his party to fret once against about Trump’s divisive form of politics. But there was also an acknowledgment by some Republicans that conciliation is just not in Trump’s repertoire, and many have grown tired of trying to get Trump to calibrate his inflammatory rhetoric.
“I don’t think there’s a speech the president can give at this stage that’s going to calm things down,” said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the only GOP senator to support Trump’s removal during his impeachment trial. “The call today with the governors, as it was reported, doesn’t calm things down.”
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina also personally spoke to Trump over the weekend and suggested he have conversations with black leaders and law enforcement officials away from the cameras.
