Democratic and Republican officials said Sunday that President Donald Trump’s inflammatory tweets were unhelpful amid the weekend’s protests.
“He should just stop talking,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat, told CNN’s “State of the Union. “This is like Charlottesville all over again. He speaks and he makes it worse. There are times when you should just be quiet. And I wish that he would just be quiet.”
“Or, if you can’t be silent, if there’s somebody of good sense and good conscience in the White House, put him in front of a teleprompter and pray that he reads it and at least says the right things,” she added. “Because he is making it worse.”
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On “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said the posts were “not constructive tweets, without any question.”
Scott, the Senate’s lone black Republican, spoke with the president Saturday to discuss his approach to the aftermath to the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.
“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, the, in my opinion, criminal death of George Floyd,'” Scott said. “‘Those tweets are very helpful.'”
“‘Mr. President, it is helpful when you lead with compassion and yesterday was far better,” he added, saying that the president’s commentary was “far more responsive after that conversation.”
Following an earlier round dangerous protests last week, Trump took to Twitter to say “THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd,” adding, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a Miami police chief’s controversial comment during civil rights protests in the late 1960s. Trump later tried to walk that comment back.
He posted Saturday following protests at the White House, saying had demonstrators breached the surrounding fence, they would have been met “by “vicious dogs” and “ominous weapons.”
Speaking that afternoon, Trump said he stands “before you as a friend and ally to every American seeking justice and peace.”
“Healing, not hatred, justice, not chaos are the mission at hand,” he added.
Monica Alba and Ken Dilanian contributed.