GOP senators urged the president to ease tensions \u2014 not inflame them.<\/b>
\nPresident 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 \u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d and \u201chands up don\u2019t shoot,\u201d Senate Republicans called for a far gentler touch than the president has displayed so far.
Some said they\u2019d 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.
\u201cWe are obviously in a divisive situation right now that\u2019s escalating, and I think he needs to make more unifying comments,\u201d said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W. Va.).
\u201cThe country is looking for healing and calm. And I think the president needs to project that in his tone. He masters that sometimes,\u201d said Senate Majority Whip John Thune (R-S. D.). \u201cThat\u2019s the tone he needs to strike right now.\u201d
Their pleadings followed a day\u2019s worth of presidential grievances and inflammatory rhetoric that caused many in his party to fret once against about Trump\u2019s divisive form of politics. But there was also an acknowledgment by some Republicans that conciliation is just not in Trump\u2019s repertoire, and many have grown tired of trying to get Trump to calibrate his inflammatory rhetoric.
\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a speech the president can give at this stage that\u2019s going to calm things down,\u201d said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the only GOP senator to support Trump\u2019s removal during his impeachment trial. \u201cThe call today with the governors, as it was reported, doesn\u2019t calm things down.\u201d
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.
With more than a dozen major cities embroiled in deadly clashes between police and protesters as well as riots and looting, Trump spent Monday dressing down governors as weak and ordering them to \u201cdominate\u201d demonstrators.
On Twitter, Trump bragged about his poll numbers and attacked former Vice President Joe Biden as \u201csleepy\u201d and his staff as \u201cradical\u201d for donating money to help bail out protesters. He also endorsed Sen. Tom Cotton\u2019s (R-Ark.) idea to bring in the military to help quell protests.
There are only the faintest signs that the GOP’s impatience with his combative approach are sinking in. On short notice, Trump made remarks at the White House on Monday evening and said Americans were \u00ab\u00a0rightly sickened\u00a0\u00bb by Floyd’s death and assured that he would not \u00ab\u00a0die in vain.\u00a0\u00bb
Casting himself as the \u00ab\u00a0law and order\u00a0\u00bb president, Trump said he would use the federal government to fight back against what he deemed \u00ab\u00a0domestic terrorism.\u201d Police forces dispersed a crowd of peaceful protesters outside the White House with tear gas minutes before D. C.’s curfew began. Trump said he would dispatch thousands of \u201cheavily-armed\u201d soldiers to enforce the curfew.
The United States now faces rising unemployment, ever-increasing coronavirus deaths and now protests in most major cities over harsh police treatment of African Americans across the United States, and some GOP senators are eager for Trump to step up.
\u201cThe president should help to heal the racial divisions in this country. It is at times like this that a president needs to speak to the nation, to pledge to right wrongs, and to calm inflamed passions,\u201d said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who urged Trump to address the nation and tell Americans to peacefully work to combat \u201cracial injustice.\u201d
Trump demands loyalty from Republicans and has dressed down those who have criticized his tone too sharply. So many are sticking with him or staying away from the topic altogether.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) agreed it would be a good idea for Trump to give a national address. But he declined to wade into whether the president was striking the right tone: \u201cI\u2019m not going to comment about the tone of his tweets.\u201d
\u201cSome people love the president, some people don’t. And I don’t think we’re ever going to resolve that,\u201d Cornyn said. \u201cIt would be good for him to address the nation.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m not going to speak for the president, but I just think this is a time we should just show a lot of compassion,\u201d offered Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa).
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a close Trump ally, took to the Senate floor on Monday afternoon and sympathized with peaceful protesters while urging an end to the violence and reading into the Senate record details of Floyd\u2019s death. He said it would be good for the country to hear from Trump but stopped short of urging Trump to deliver an address harmonizing with his own message.
\u201cI can only speak for myself. What I think needs to be said is the violence, and the unrest, that does great disservice to [Floyd\u2019s] memory and his cause,\u201d Hawley said. \u201cI defer to [Trump] on what he\u2019s got to do. Every person has to speak for himself or herself.\u201d
Hawley was one of several Republicans to come to the floor on Monday and express his revulsion at police killings of black people. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that the country \u201ccannot deafen itself to the anger, pain, or frustration of black Americans,\u201d and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that \u201cGeorge Floyd deserved better, all black American do.\u201d
But some in the party doubted whether Trump\u2019s bully pulpit could help the nation heal anyway.
\u201cUnifying would be a good thing. But\u2026 we never really seem to be able to unify around these incidents that have gone on for a long time,\u201d said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). \u201cGoing back to what happened in Ferguson in 2014, there\u2019s a pattern that we can\u2019t seem to figure out how to break away from.\u201d
Quint Forgey contributed to this report.<\/p>\n