The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Encourages Governors To 'Dominate' Protesters, Blames Democrats For Unrest

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

President Trump on Monday called governors weak and urged them to "dominate" to prevent further violent demonstrations following the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minneapolis who died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck. Plus former Vice President Joe Biden meets with black leaders and is encouraged to listen to younger African-Americans.This episode: campaign correspondent Scott Detrow, White House reporter Ayesha Rascoe, and national political correspondent Mara Liasson.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio stationLearn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. It's 2.28 Eastern on Monday, June 1st. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the presidential campaign. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And protests over the death of George Floyd continue throughout the country, from Minneapolis to Atlanta to Louisville to Los Angeles, all the way to the

White House in Washington, D.C., protesters gathered by the thousands this weekend to speak out against police brutality. While peaceful protests were the norm for much of the day, many cities saw them turn violent at times in the evenings. Cars were burned and buildings were damaged, including a historic church just steps from the White House. Police officers shot people with rubber bullets and sprayed tear gas. And Ayesha, in tweet after tweet, the president sought to place the blame on what he called the radical left and Democratic mayors and governors, making a point to make this a partisan issue. Yes. I mean, he, President Trump definitely went to this framing for this issue that is very kind of comfortable for him. And it's basically just blaming the radical left and then, you know, calling out Democratic governors and Democratic mayors

and saying that they're the problem, they're being too weak. He was also continuing to use this violent rhetoric. I mean, on Saturday morning, he talked about how the Secret Service was responding to protests outside the White House. And he said that they were ready if anyone tried to get through with vicious dogs and ominous weapons. Which, Aisha, I mean, to me, that jumped out because when we were on the podcast Friday, we were talking about how he was trying to walk back that earlier tweet about, you know, looting leads to shooting, saying I wasn't aware of the significance of that phrase. I think every adult in America is aware of the significance of vicious dogs and talking about police dogs when you talk about civil rights protests. So it was interesting

to me that he went just right back into that exact frame. He went right back into it. And that's what's happened over and over again. And President Trump, he has talked about trying to get justice for George Floyd and trying to, you know, and that and saying that the officers should face, you know, should face should face justice for what they did. But at the same time, he's calling for heavy handed police tactics in response to police brutality protest. This is the problem when the president tries to deliver two messages at once. One of them is louder and is heard more clearly. And the reason why the militaristic, let's get tough on protesters, they're just a bunch of left-wing radicals, is heard more loudly is because it's more consistent with what the president has said for years and years. Remember, his administration has pretty much

dismantled police oversight efforts that were started by the Obama administration, all those federal consent decrees that were meant to overhaul local police departments. His attorney general recently said that communities that criticize law enforcement may not deserve police protection. In the first year or two that he was in office, President Trump gave a speech where he encouraged police officers not to be too nice when they handled suspects and to kind of hit their heads on the roof of the squad car as they tucked them in after they were arrested. So the problem is, is that the really tough us against them rhetoric is consistent with what Trump has said. So the other message about justice for Floyd, or even harking back to his

efforts on criminal justice reform, which he hasn't mentioned during this whole episode, really get lost. I mean, today he told the governors they have to dominate the protesters or else they will look like jerks. Yeah. And that was a call between President Trump and governors. Kelsey Snell did some reporting on that and was told that Trump told the governors, like you said, dominate the protesters, send them to jail for a long time. He called the governors weak and repeatedly told them to use the military in their response to these protests. Yeah, and you had, I guess, according to some of our reporting from our colleagues, that you did have some pushback from this. Governor Pritzker of Illinois told Trump that he was really concerned about the

rhetoric that he's been using and that he was concerned that the rhetoric that's coming out of the White House is making it worse. And Trump basically responded, I don't like your rhetoric much either, and started talking about the coronavirus. And Trump did go on to say, like, I have to talk about law and order in this country. But, you know, he said that he has talked at length about Floyd's case, but he has to talk about law and order. Samara, the president's rhetoric has been a major storyline over the last few days. But another storyline when you talk about the White House response to all of this has been what he hasn't done. And that is give the type of speech, the type of unifying message, the Oval Office address or whatever it is,

a response that you would see from most typical presidents. Of course, President Trump is not a typical president. That is the premise he ran on. That is what his supporters like about him. But it's been really notable in a moment like this, which a lot of people are saying is the absolute biggest civil unrest that we have seen on a widespread scale in this country since 1968. Yeah, and there are definitely people inside and outside the White House who think he should give a kind of Oval Office address, a kind of State of the Union type address about this. I've talked to conservative outside advisors to the White House who think he should

convene a kind of federal task force on racism in police departments. I mean, these are kind of the obvious things that presidents do when the country seems like it's falling apart at the seams. But either the White House isn't quite ready to do that, although Brooke Rollins, the new domestic policy advisor in the White House, said that they are looking at all sorts of bipartisan solutions that they maybe would present. The problem is that the president is, number one, the candidate of law and order. That's how he has styled himself. But he's also the candidate of disruption. So it's hard to be both of those things. And I think the fact that he's the candidate of disruption makes it harder for him to be the president for law and order.

And his focus on the election, I think, has been really striking at this point because he's basically arguing. And he tweeted this morning, November 3rd, you know, and he's bashing his Democratic rival for President Joe Biden. But it's interesting to do that. He's doing it as an incumbent. He's doing it as the president, basically saying, you know, you need to vote for me so I can, I guess, deal with all of this. That's happening now when he's the president. As he's president. So what do you like? So that's the kind of disconnect. He's saying, vote for me. I'm tough, but this is all happening while you're in the White House, and it's happening very close to the White House. I think that the easiest

hot take on this, when you say, whoa, what effect will this civil unrest have on the election? The easy hot take is, well, anytime there are riots, it helps Republicans, the party of law and order, and it hurts Democrats. But that might not be the case this time. Last time we had this happen, the law and order candidate was the challenger, Richard Nixon. And all of these comparisons to the late 60s, I feel like this one weirdly comforting thing to me over the last few years with all of the strife and unrest that we've covered and talked about is, I thought, well, it's not quite as bad as it was in like 1968. We still haven't reached that level. And now, as a lot of people pointed out over the weekend, we are dealing with a level of civil anger not seen since the 60s, with unemployment not seen since the Great Depression, with a once-in-a-century pandemic.

And that's where we are right now. It's a lot. Look, there's no doubt that the unrest in the streets is not as bad as 1968, but it's that triple whammy that you just described. You know, African-American communities hit harder than any other by the pandemic, hit harder than any other by the recession, and now you've got this incredible spate of killings of unarmed African American men by police officers. All of this has come together to show kind of the disparate impacts and the long-term disparate impacts that have been happening to the Black community in particular, whether it's health, whether it's the economy, whether it's police brutality and their interactions with the police

and having to deal with all of these issues that's been kind of boiling under the surface for a very long time and that people have been calling for these things to be addressed for decades and more than decades. And they just haven't been addressed. And as President Trump is combative throughout all of this, former Vice President Joe Biden is making a concerted effort to to have a much different approach and talk about a much different approach that he would take if all of these problems become his problem next year if he wins the election. We're going to take a quick break and talk about what Joe Biden has been saying the last few days, including getting out on the campaign trail for the first time since mid-March. Support for NPR and the following message come from DuckDuckGo. Are you fed up with companies selling your data?

DuckDuckGo can help. They help millions of people like you take back their privacy online. With one download, you can search and browse privately, avoiding trackers. DuckDuckGo. Privacy simplified. Cell phone footage shows police killing unarmed black people.

Protesters take to the streets. Rinse and repeat. For a decade. Why? Everyone moves on. A blunt reminder that we've been here before. On Code Switch. From NPR.

And we're back. And this is where I should point out that I'm actually currently sitting in a parked car in Wilmington, Delaware. And that is because former Vice President Joe Biden held his first in-person campaign event since mid-March. So this is the first time I've been back out of Washington, D.C. and on the campaign trail since then. Biden had been doing videos in his house. We've talked a lot about that. But in recent days, he has made a point to get out in Wilmington, to get out into different environments and really actively contrast how he is approaching all of this with what the president is doing. So today he went to a church in Wilmington and he had a Q&A session with about 15 people, many of them African-American ministers

from the Wilmington area. So how did it go, Scott? I mean, were they supportive of him? Were they critical? A little bit of both. It was some interesting tension in the room because these were all Joe Biden supporters, not only people who are backing him for president, people who have known him for decades and pointed that out. And Biden actually didn't talk for like 45 minutes. He just sat there and listened as one at a time people stood up where they were spaced out in pews, socially distant, everyone was wearing masks. And there was a big theme. And one woman named Davonna Williams put this in a striking and really sad to hear way of just increased desperation from a lot of younger African-Americans in particular. Education doesn't mean anything if we can't go birdwatching, if we can't job and if we can't go to a convenience store. And what I worry about

for young people is feelings of hopelessness and frustration if they don't feel that they have a hope for their future. Then it comes to him speaking, and he has really spoken in that emotional, empathetic way that is kind of his trademark over the last few days in the video statements that he's been making. He went back to that economic theme saying that, you know, in the 1960s, the response to all this unrest was passing civil rights bills. He said that he views economic opportunity as the civil rights bill of the current era, trying to steer that more toward African-Americans. He did talk about returning to that increased federal oversight of police departments with police advisory boards, more of the active justice department.

He talked about changing police training. But it seemed more like a theme of not doing that us versus them approach that President Trump takes, but really trying to be president of the entire country and every group within it. We saw on the Democratic side, you know, pretty much all the candidates, you know, in the primary were coming out with plans for Black people. And Biden has come out with a plan to help Black America. But I think part of what you're seeing is a call for really direct action that in the past, even with, you know, with the Obama administration, you never saw or Democrats, Republicans saw really direct action. This is for black people, because there is an argument that colorblind policy is not lifting all boats,

right, that there are specific needs of the black community that specifically need to be addressed that can't just be addressed in this kind of one size fits all way. And so Biden still has to answer that question, right? Yeah, I think that's a great way to put it. Two of the themes, and again, this was predominantly older African Americans. That's a group that has been strongly supportive of Biden throughout the entire election, saying, we know you, we are going to back you, we trust you, but we want tangible, specific, deliverable results. Yes, and we've been waiting for those. But the thing that's important politically, the message is not we're going to be there for you no matter what. Sure, older African Americans are going to be there for him no matter what. Sure, older African Americans are going to be

there for him no matter what. But unless they push him to a place where he does have future vision answers to these problems, young African Americans may not come out and vote. And that's Biden's political problem here. All right. Well, we'll be here every day this week with a podcast trying to make sense of it. I'm Scott Detrow. I cover the presidential campaign. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. I cover the White House. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.