Brazile: We can all solve this together
Fox News contributor Donna Brazile on the importance of words and understanding amid protests.
President Trump must ignore his critics and deliver an address to the nation that "speaks to the promise" of America, Fox News contributor Donna Brazile said Monday, responding to the worsening unrest across the country in response to the death of George Floyd while in police custody in Minneapolis.
"He's my president, Ed. And it doesn't matter who I voted for. He's my president. Just like Barack Obama, George Bush," Brazile told host Ed Henry on "America's Newsroom."
"I can go all the way back to John F. Kennedy, when I was born in the segregated South," said Brazile, former interim chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.
Brazile said the president's tweets in response to the protesters have not been helpful to this point and urged him to try a different approach, rather than trying to lash out at Democrats and the media.
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"Because he holds an office that we all hold in high esteem, speak to our pain, speak to the promise that this country has for all of us, Mr. President. Don't even focus on what the people who disregard you might be saying. I think at times, this president takes it all in the chest. Don't take it in the chest. Lead us into this tomorrow that we were all promised, Mr. President, and disregard the noise. Talk about the hope and the promise, Mr. President. You are bigger than this. Come to this moment with faith in our future, and I do believe he can speak to all of us," she said.
She went on to lament that politics have been turned into "combat" rather than both sides trying to compromise.
"We have one President of the United States and he must speak for all of us," she said, as Henry repeatedly asked why Democratic leaders are not forcefully speaking out against looting and criminal behavior.
American cities are spending Monday morning digging out from scenes of destruction after demonstrations against the police-involved death of George Floyd gave way to a fifth straight night of looting and rioting, resulting in another wave of arrests.
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As of Monday morning, at least 4,400 people have been taken into custody nationwide in relation to the chaos, according to an Associated Press tally. Meanwhile, countless more business owners whose livelihoods already have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic are finding their stores damaged and ransacked.
“It's one of the most challenging times that I’ve seen in my 30 years of policing,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea told "Fox & Friends" on Monday after a night of looting in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood left sidewalks outside high-end retail stores littered with debris and broken glass. “I can tell you that we had thousands of police officers deployed last night.”
“In terms of protest, in terms of balancing orderly protest, respecting people’s rights to peacefully assemble, that was going on all day, large crowds in Brooklyn, smaller crowds in Queens, significant crowds in Manhattan," Dermot continued. “But then it turned dark, it turned ugly and it turned that way fast.”
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The New York Post reports that police arrested dozens of looters in the Big Apple overnight. A witness told the newspaper that some of them acted in an apparent system where suspects would break into stores before leaping into getaway vehicles outside.
Videos on social media showed crowds targeting a wide array of businesses throughout Manhattan, emerging from shattered storefronts with everything ranging from Chanel handbags to bicycles.
Fox News' Greg Norman contributed to this report.
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