Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms appeared on both CNN’s State of the Union and CBS News’ Face the Nation this Sunday morning. In both appearances, the mayor urged Donald Trump to “just stop” talking. The mayor compared Trump’s tweets about mass protests to his comments on Charlottesville, adding that “he speaks and he makes it worse.” Charlottesville is a reference to the deadly 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the counter-protest. Trump famously commented that there were "very fine people on both sides."
When speaking to Jake Tapper on CNN, Mayor Bottoms said of Trump: “If he can’t be silent, if there is somebody of good sense and good conscience in the White House, put him in front of a teleprompter and pray that he reads it. And at least says the right things, because he is making it worse.”
Here is that CNN clip.
On Face the Nation, she suggested similarly, saying: "There are times where you should just stop, and this is one of those times.” She specified that this is “not about using military force. This is about where we are in America. We are beyond a tipping point in this country, and his rhetoric only inflames that. And he should sometimes just stop talking."
Here is that clip.
On Friday, Trump threatened to send the national guard to Minneapolis, Minnesota because of protests.
The latter tweet was marked by Twitter as violating rules because it glorified violence.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted the following about protests outside of the White House, including that if protests breached the White House’s fence, they would have been met with “the most vicious dogs, and the most ominous weapons.” This tweet hasn’t been marked by Twitter; according to Axios, a Twitter spokesperson explained it’s because the tweet doesn’t threaten a specific group or person, and doesn’t encourage others to act in a violent way. Nor does it reference an event that actually occurred.
Here is a longer version of the mayor’s CNN appearance.
