Trump calls Governors 'weak' over protest response
President Trump on a phone call on Monday spoke with Governors to address how they've responded to protests and riots across the country following the death of George Floyd. He called them 'weak' and urged them to 'toughen up' and 'dominate' protestors. Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman joins The Final Round to discuss.
Video Transcript
SEANA SMITH: President Trump lashing out at governors today during a video conference at the White House. He was telling them that, quote, "most of you are weak." And this comes in regards to their response to the protests. And urged law enforcement to crack down and make more arrests here over the next couple of days.
Rick, I want to bring you into this and just get your reaction, because it seems consistent with what we've heard from President Trump in recent days, just in terms of his response to the unrest is that he's calling for a stronger law enforcement, rather than calling for calm or really addressing any of the concerns that have been put forth by thousands and thousands of people.
RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, no deftness or touch whatsoever. I mean, this phone call, really, it sounds like a teenager playing president in a video game. It's unbelievable, but we've come to expect surreal things. So he lambastes the governors for being too soft on the protesters. And by the way, he never makes a distinction between rioters, who are criminals, and protesters, who have a right to protest.
I mean, that is the free speech that Trump supposedly cares so much about protecting. You're allowed to protest in the United States. That's not against the law. Breaking into stores and stealing stuff is a crime. Two totally different things. But he seemed to just be referring to the rioters as protesters. And he says the governors need to dominate them. And he said that anybody who gets arrested should be put in jail for 10 years, as if we have no such thing as due process.
And he just seems to think that a hard crackdown, involving violence, if necessary, is just the way to go here. I think any mayor who had to deal with the consequences of that kind of crackdown would say that's probably the worst way we can go about it. But as in many instances, Trump is not actually doing anything. He's just sitting in the White House, telling other people, the governors and mayors who are having to deal with this, what they should do, while actually doing nothing himself.
SEANA SMITH: Well, and it also just speaks to the extreme divide that we have in the country, and it makes it worse just when you use this type of rhetoric. When you attack other government officials, when you attack governors, who you should be holding in the highest regard, that doesn't solve any issues yet. I guess we shouldn't be surprised, but I was almost at a loss of words when I was listening to parts of that conversation because when you think about that that's the person that's in the White House, that's the person that should be leading this response on a national scale, and that's the approach that they're going to take, that it's almost hard to try and believe that we will see some sort of peaceful or, I guess, yeah, peaceful resolution anytime soon.
RICK NEWMAN: Well, you know, let's rethink this idea that we're so divided on this issue. I'm not sure we are that divided on this issue. On one hand, you have Trump, but on the other hand, you seem to have-- I'm not aware of any governors or mayors who dissent from the idea that, look, you need to find a peaceful way, the most peaceful way to deal with this, because if you don't, you're just going to have worse bloodshed on your hands.
I don't-- I'm not hearing any Republican governors or mayors going along with Trump and saying, yeah, yeah, man, let's go out there and bash some more heads. I mean, I think everybody realizes how fragile this situation. I mean, we've got tinderbox situations all across the country. And I think maybe President Trump is the only one who feels the way he does. I mean, obviously, many are frustrated to see what's going on from the perspective of watching the looters, and then the perspective of the protesters just trying to get some basic civil rights. But you're not hearing a lot of people saying, yeah, we need to go crack more heads.
MYLES UDLAND: And I guess, Rick, you know, we talked to Derrick Johnson of the NAACP just a few moments ago, and you know, you asked him, like, what should Trump say, and his point was that, well, Trump hasn't done anything in the last several years, so I don't expect that to change now. I mean, I guess, on the one hand, there is no question to ask you all what could Trump do here, but like, he still is going to be the president until January of 2021. Theoretically, over the next seven months, he could do something slightly different. I mean, what-- like, could he do an Oval Office address? Is there anything that Trump might do that's different than just kind of rage tweeting?
RICK NEWMAN: Well, one of the things you want to know about a president is how well she or-- he or she react in a crisis. Trump has not had a crisis up until 2020, and now he's got three crises. And we now know how Trump reacts in a crisis. He basically tries not to take responsibility, and he wants other people to handle it.
That is what has happened with the coronavirus. He does not want to be in charge of a federal testing program. He wants to push that out to the states, even though almost every expert, both Democrat and Republican, says this needs to be marshalled at the federal level. And now, we're seeing the same thing with regard to these, you know, the protests and disturbances over what are basically civil rights issues.
Trump does not want to do anything. He wants to tell the governors what they should do, and the mayors. I think any other president most certainly would have-- would be giving an Oval Office address at this point, meant to be conciliatory and urge calm. There's been talk about that at the White House. But that is just-- that is almost not in Trump's playbook. I mean, we really have not seen him do anything like that, and I think the odds are against it. So basically, he wants to deflect, try to get people to notice something else, and hope other people solve the problem.
SEANA SMITH: Yeah, and that's what we've seen him do time and time again over the last several weeks. That's for sure. We will continue, of course, to monitor this story for you.
