White House aides are divided over how President Trump should respond to nationwide riots and whether he should use an Oval Office address to try to ease tensions after a weekend of escalating violence.
On Monday, a week after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, cities are preparing for another night of riots even as they clean up after the last round.
The situation pits one of Trump’s closest confidants, Hope Hicks, against chief of staff Mark Meadows as they consider the political fallout and the risk for a president facing reelection in November.
Sources familiar with the matter said Meadows has been pushing for a clear statement of support for police officers and a message that the president is doing everything he can to restore law and order.
Hicks, on the other hand, has argued that Trump should avoid a set piece speech for fear of a repeat of his COVID-19 Oval Office address, during which he made a number of errors that had to be quickly clarified.
Instead, the thinking goes, a lower-profile strategy would leave the public to continue to associate the destruction with left-wing agitators and Democratic governors.
But an individual close to the White House said the president was in danger of missing an opportunity to connect with ordinary people who spent the weekend watching their cities burn.
“They need a signal that Trump is on their side and he is doing what he can to end these riots,” the individual said. “And I think it’s a mistake not to speak to the American people and apply heavy pressure on Democrat mayors and governors to call in the National Guard and arrest people at the first sign of violence.”
The president’s Monday schedule listed three events, including a videoconference with governors, law enforcement agencies, and national security officials on keeping “American communities safe.” All three were listed as “closed press,” meaning there would be no public sightings of the president or question-and-answer sessions with reporters.
The president has asked for military options to help quell the spreading unrest and now faces calls from allies to use the Insurrection Act to deploy troops.
Yet he limited his public response Monday morning to tweets that blamed his political opponents and accused Joe Biden’s supporters of siding with anarchists.
“Sleepy Joe Biden’s people are so Radical Left that they are working to get the Anarchists out of jail, and probably more,” he wrote.
[Click here for complete George Floyd coverage]
Sleepy Joe Biden’s people are so Radical Left that they are working to get the Anarchists out of jail, and probably more. Joe doesn’t know anything about it, he is clueless, but they will be the real power, not Joe. They will be calling the shots! Big tax increases for all, Plus!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2020
It was left to White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany to deliver the message Monday morning that Trump is a “law and order president” on Fox News. An Oval Office address won’t stop antifa, she said.
“He’s taken extraordinary action — talking about activating the National Guard as we saw happening in Minnesota,” she said, “criminalizing inter-state travel that is geared towards inciting violence, making sure that those individuals are prosecuted, labeling antifa as a domestic terrorist entity that will be prosecuted as such.”
Legal scholars have questioned whether Trump can apply a terrorist designation to antifa, which began as a loose collection of anti-fascist groups, something usually done by the State Department to target foreign entities.
However, Attorney General William Barr on Saturday said the administration would enforce laws that make it a federal offense to cross state lines to incite or participate in riots.
Sen. Tom Cotton said it was right to treat antifa as a terrorist group but said there were other applicable laws.
“There are a lot of tools that the president, the Department of Justice, has in their toolkit, from the Insurrection Act to the Explosives Act to the Riot Act, that can be used to stop this anarchy,” he told Fox News.
The Insurrection Act of 1807 governs the president’s ability to deploy military forces on American soil. It authorizes the use of troops when the president believes them necessary “to suppress an insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy.”
It was used in 1992 in response to the Los Angeles riots following the police beating of Rodney King. On that occasion, it was invoked after the governor of California appealed to President George H.W. Bush for help.
