Trump ‘does not try to unite US people’
DONALD TRUMP’S inability to unify the US at a time of grave unrest is testing his uneasy alliance with members of his own Republican party.
Some have spoken out against the president, having been emboldened by General James Mattis’s plea for a leader who lives up to American ideals of a more perfect union.
Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski on Thursday called the rebuke by Mr Trump’s first Pentagon chief “necessary and overdue”.
“Perhaps we’re getting to the point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally, and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up,” Ms Murkowski said.
Ms Murkowski’s remarks reflected the choice Republicans are forced to make about whether, and for how long, to support Mr Trump when his words and actions conflict with their values and goals.
Mr Trump has responded to violence accompanying some protests following George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis by calling for more “law and order” to “dominate” even peaceful demonstrations.
He has been slower and less forceful in addressing racial injustice and questions of police brutality that lie at the heart of the unrest.
Asked whether she could still support Mr Trump, Ms Murkowski replied: “I am struggling with it. I have struggled with it for a long time.”
The US is on edge, and the November election looms with the presidency and control of the House and Senate at stake. Mr Trump has made clear that consequences for what he considers disloyalty can be steep.
He promised to campaign against Ms Murkowski when she seeks reelection in 2022.
Democratic senators, meanwhile, gathered at the Capitol’s Emancipation Hall to bow – some kneeling – in an eight-minute, 46-second moment of silence for Mr Floyd, representing the time he was held to the ground by police.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent Mr Trump a letter seeking an accounting of the “increased militarisation” towards protesters “that may increase chaos”.
For Republicans, the challenge peaked when federal forces cleared peaceful protesters from Lafayette Park near the White House so Mr Trump could stage a photo op holding up a Bible outside a church.
Mr Mattis, Mr Trump’s defence secretary until December 2018, was “angry and appalled”.
“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people – does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” Mr Mattis wrote in The Atlantic, adding the upheaval was the result of “three years without mature leadership”.
“We can unite without him,” he added.