A top Senate Democrat said he hasn’t seen any attempts by President Trump to unite the country following his inauguration and chalks up the country’s divisions to his rhetoric.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on MSNBC Monday Trump has spoken a lot about uniting the country and blamed its divisions on former President Obama, but to this point, Durbin doesn’t believe the president has done anything to bridge the gap.
“Where would you find the olive branch in the first six weeks? I haven’t seen it,” Durbin said.
“When it comes to executive orders, there is no olive branch involved here. This is confrontation.”
Durbin said Trump’s fights with the media, especially over the investigation into reports Russia interfered in the presidential election on his behalf, are unhelpful.
Durbin said the politicization of Russian interference by the White House will harm the American people’s ability to find out what really happened. He called for a special prosecutor to be appointed and a true independent investigation, because otherwise he believes the results will be buried.
He said Senate Republicans would likely make it hard for the public to find out what’s in the report.
“I believe the venue that they’ve chosen guarantees the American people will not know what is said, and months from now, maybe years from now, there will be a classified report,” he said.
Trump needs to stop questioning the integrity of American institutions for his own political gain, Durbin added.
“It’s troubling because he’s questioned the integrity of our judiciary, so-called judges and judges you can’t trust because of their ethnic background, then he goes after the media,” Durbin said. “The fact is this is a tenuous moment in American history.”
