As President Donald Trump fires off tweet after tweet attacking his political enemies and protesters amid the demonstrations against the death of George Floyd, his aides are reportedly fretting that his antagonistic rhetoric could come back to bite him in November.
Axios, NBC News, and the New York Times report that Trump’s aides have been urging the President to cool it with the divisive tweets and instead attempt to unify the nation by giving a formal address about Floyd, who died after a white officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota kneeled on his neck, as protests against police brutality rage throughout the country.
Trump’s incendiary response to the protests drew intense backlash on Friday after he threatened via Twitter to send the National Guard to Minnesota and declared that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The phrase, which has roots in law enforcement’s racist policing of black communities in the 1960s, prompted Twitter to add a warning label to Trump’s post for “glorifying violence.”
A senior White House official told Axios that the tweet was “stupid.”
And yet Trump has disregarded his advisers’ warnings, as he is wont to do, and is trying to use the crisis to boost his reelection campaign and attack his Democratic presidential rival, Joe Biden.
“Sleep 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,” Trump tweeted on Monday morning. “They will be calling the shots! Big tax increases for all, Plus!”
On Sunday, the President tweeted that “the World is watching and laughing at” Democrats “and Sleepy Joe.”
“Is this what America wants? NO!!!” he wrote.
