Donald Trump on Thursday morning addressed the second night of violent protests in Charlotte, North Carolina, over the fatal shooting of a black man by police, describing the situation as “very sad.”
“It’s very divided, our country, and it’s getting worse, so I’m not overly surprised to see it, but it’s happening,” Trump said on “Fox and Friends.” “It just seems that there’s a lack of spirit between the white and the black.”
“There’s such a lack of — there’s a lack of spirit,” he continued. “There’s a lack of something — something’s going on that’s bad, and what’s going on between police and others is getting worse.
Trump said that if he were president, he would try to instill unity.
“You have to have law and order. At the same time you have to have a certain spirit, a certain unity. There’s no unity. You look at the level of hatred, the rocks being thrown and everything happening. It’s so sad to see,” he said. “There’s just no unity. There has to be a unity message that has to get out, and it starts with leadership.”
When asked if there needs to be better dialogue between communities and the police, Trump suggested that dialogue was not enough in Dallas, where a gunman shot and killed several police officers in July.
“They were constantly talking and meeting and having community groups and that was a pretty tough situation, to put it mildly, a terrible, terrible situation. So you know that sounds good. It sounds right, but there’s something deeper than that,” Trump said.
