Roberts wants Trump to respect office

plummet, and then something important happened, which is that Trump spoke.

He said that he would bring everybody in the country together. He didn’t do anything offensive. And the minute he said that, the markets had gone up. Then [President Barack] Obama and [Democratic candidate] Hillary [Clinton] spoke, and the markets started to go up more. It was an example that words matter, which I was worried was a lesson Trump couldn’t learn. The jury is still out on that.

There’s a lot of debate on how to cover Trump now. Some say treating Trump like a regular president-elect risks “normalizing” dangerous tendencies, while others feel the media has shown too much hostility toward him. What do you think?

I’m really old-school about this: You have to respect the office of the presidency. I just want him to respect the office of the presidency. That’s where the tweets become an issue.

... You can’t declare that it’s not news when he says things like [claiming the election was] rigged. And every story I saw or heard said the tweet was inaccurate, wrong. Nobody took it at face value. I think that’s completely appropriate.

You said in August that Republican leaders who supported Trump despite protesting his racist remarks were “morally tainted.” What obligations do you think Republicans have now that he’ll be president?

That was in answer to [Speaker of the House] Paul Ryan in particular, who said Trump had made a textbook racist statement: There’s supposed to be a next sentence after that [disavowing Trump], and that sentence never happened. I think they have a lot of obligations. Their first obligation, God love them, is to govern. Good luck with that.

We had Republicans, including our own Sen. Pat Toomey, say they’ll be a check on Mr. Trump. Do you see any sign they’ll play that role?

I don’t know about Pat Toomey individually, but the “get on board with the team” spirit is very high at the moment. But that will dissipate.

Is there any particular issue where you think that will happen?

Pretty much all of them, starting with repealing Obamacare. And if Trump really tries to push for infrastructure spending, that’s going to have them in knots.

There are folks out there — people of color, immigrants, and their friends and neighbors — who are concerned about what this election means. What should they do?

One thing I’d say is take a deep breath. The founders did protect against dictatorship. They fought a revolution against a king, and they protected against that as best they could.

But also I’d say, organize and advocate. The worst thing you can do is sit around and be paralyzed.