officials. know, they should've recognized he was a brutal policeman long ago. he should've been arrested right away. you cannot do the investigation first, then arrested the person. so this thing was botched from the start. want to talk about marion down here by the way, which was devastated by the tobacco problem. but donald trump has condemned the actions of the police from day one. he has supported peaceful protesters from day one. he has condemned the active leaders. the actions of looters. if you breach the fence to the white house that could be interpreted as a coup attempt and the full force of the

military can be released on those people. i think they are trying to bait him and i think he has used restraint under the circumstances. host: thank you for all of your calls this morning on "washington journal." we are still waiting >> for >> a briefing with governor newsom. he is expected to talk about the protests in his state following the death of george floyd and california is response to the coronavirus pandemic. fore we continue to wait governor newsom, here is more from this morning's "washington journal." posted last night, printed this morning in "the washington post," and the headline, online, america is at a low ebb, shaken by multiple blows, and trump adds to the distress. this is the state

of the union, as the nation reels from multiple blows, each one arriving with swift and overwhelming force. long-standing, untreated they have highlighted the country's real vulnerabilities. what we happens below the isface and rarely addressed now impossible to ignore. president's leadership, 202-748-8000 for republicans. 202-748-8001 for democrats. nd all others, 202-748-8002. politico is writing this morning about what we can possibly hear from the president in the coming days and the debate over that inside

the white house. the white house divided on trump addressing racial tensions. they write that as protests continue to flare across the country, president trump and his top aides can be settle on the next steps the white house should take to ease tensions after the latest death of an african-american man detained by a white police officer. white house chief of staff mark meadows has been pushing for the president to deliver a formal address to the nation, to emphasize his support for law and order and police officers, the familiar trope for the republican party and one that typically plays well with its base. they write that trump senior adviser and son-in-law jared kushner, along with several other top aides, argued against such a move, fearing the tone could alienate key voters ahead of the november election, including african-americans, whose support the administration has been trying to court. politico writes that an address would also detract from the president's message of trying to restart the economy as

quickly as possible, allies say. the president's last formal address in mid-march from the oval office dealing with the growing coronavirus crisis was not viewed internally as a success. since the white house had to clarify several points from the hastily written speech, which trump appeared uncomfortable delivering. your thoughts this morning on the president's leadership, we'll show you a headline from "usa today" and read more of this in a bit. susan page, their chief washington bureau chief, i should say, trump is failing the text of leadership. that's the headline of her piece this morning. dalia first up in miami, florida. good morning. go ahead. caller: good morning. i just want to say that president trump, i agree with him, and i'm very glad that he's the president. lead e of being able to the country was obama.

ok? an tough ahas grown and grown and grown, and no one wants to o anything about it. down near miami last night, by 10:00, the city was quiet. the night before, they had 57 arrests. only 13 people lived in miami. they tried to loot last night a c.v.s. store. the police moved in, wouldn't allow it. there was no soft touch. the cities that have the problems are the mayors that are run by democrats who are liberal, like that idiot in new york. thank you very much. host: she mentioned the word antifa, the president yesterday commenting about that, tweeting about that. the "new york times" writes that the president said his administration "will be designating antifa has a terrorist organization," referring to the shorthand for

anti-fascists. but they write antifa is a movement of activists who dress in black and call themselves anarchists, not an organization with a clear structure that can be penalized under law. moreover, american law applies to terrorist designation to foreign entities, not domestic groups. by targeting antifa, however, mr. trump effectively paints all the protests with the brush of violent radicalism without addressing the underlying conditions that have driven many of the people who have taken to the streets. from the "new york times," this is elaine, next up, democrats line in st. louis. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you so much. i just wanted to start off saying that c-span is such a wonderful service. thank you so much for all of the programming. just last week, c-span3 covered an excellent program that talked about violence in america. it's in our blood.

america started in a violent nature. we respond to violence. what's happening now, unfortunately, has been bred throughout history. i can't remember the name of the program, but it was on c-span3. nd it broke it down. but i can understand why the reason why people are looting. the whole idea that we've been quarantined at home, sheltering in place, and mitch mcconnell refuses to give support to the average joe, that is disheartening. host: elaine, do you think that looting is more of a reaction to the pent-up nature of the shutdown over the last few

months, rather than the anger over the killing of george floyd? caller: i think it's -- i think it's both. it's a sign of helplessness. we really don't have any honest truth about the pandemic, whether we should -- we shouldn't wear masks, the next month we should. and i understand that we're learning, but the president has silenced dr. fauci, who i really did trust. you feel like you're in limbo and then when you see that they're rushing to open have hing and you don't -- if you are low income, you on't have a job to go back to. and you do -- you're doing a little bit better on unemployment insurance, but you

hear the republicans saying, oh, no, we want to get rid of that. and they want to continue to to large ollars companies. host: ok, elaine, we're going to go to our republican line next and hear from david in texas. caller: good morning. as far as trump making a speech or anything else, i don't think that's going to matter. the democrats are going to hate him no matter what he says. they still think he's a traitor, treasonist, russian stooge, no matter how much new stuff comes out. the media is going to report their predetermined slant, so 90% is going to go that way, and more than half of the newspapers, probably three-fourths of the newspaper articles and opinions you're going to read are going to paire it back. so again, what's the point? what happens, what he does, and hopefully getting some of the democratic mayors -- because

probably 95% of mayors in america are democrat. certainly 95-plus percent of the large cities have been run by one party for a hundred years practically. that's probably the biggest single reason for the economic mess that the cities are in, which is, in my opinion, more to do what w what's going on, the economic issue than the racial issue, although they're both connected. the lady was just talking about republicans not wanting to help people out, mitch mcconnell this, mitch mcconnell that. that's poppycock. the republicans, i have a small business, none of my clients paid me for 3 1/2 months. the republicans and the trump administration have done an absolutely unbelievable job of pushing money out into the economy. i listen to c-span a lot. they had a report out that said that, in fact, it was on one of the financial shows that said that wall street was going up right now because one of the key statistics they looked at was people being late on their

rent, that was only 2% over prior quarter, and that's because so much more money has been pushed out. the unemployment part really isn't against people getting unemployment. the federal part that was kicked in was in large degree because the states couldn't get -- there's gov. newsom: we have to own up to some very difficult things. the black community is not responsible for what is happening in this country right now. we are. we are. our institutions are responsible. we are accountable to this moment. let's just call that out. responsibilitye and we have been paying lip service about that for generations.