Speaking on a private conference call, audio of which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Trump began a conversation with state governors with an extended, angry diatribe. “You have to dominate,” he told them. “If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time — they’re going to run over you, you’re going to look like a bunch of jerks.”
“You have to dominate or you’ll look like a bunch of jerks, you have to arrest and try people…if you don’t put it down it will get worse and worse. The only time it’s successful is when you’re weak and most of you are weak.” Those are the words of our president as he spoke to governors over the phone this morning. No calls for de-escalation or restraint from militarized police forces, no suggestions for governors to sit down and listen to the pain of protesters, no path forward to tackling the systemic injustice that has plagued our country since its founding. Just sneers of derision and more calls for violence. Let’s get one thing clear: meeting protesters fighting police violence with more police violence is not the way forward. The only person who is “weak” in this moment is Trump himself. What do you think?