Trump privately scolded, warned by allies
by Jonathan Swan
Over the past couple of days, numerous advisers both inside and outside the White House have urged the president to tone down his violent rhetoric, which many worry could escalate racial tensions and hurt him politically.
Behind the scenes: The biggest source of internal concern was Trump's escalatory tweet, "when the looting starts, the shooting starts." Some advisers said it could damage him severely with independent voters and suburban women.
After not going to sleep until the early hours of Friday morning, President Trump woke to a string of conversations with advisers who told him he had a problem.
Some of Trump's most trusted aides, including Hope Hicks, expressed concern about a tweet he sent shortly before 1am Friday, in which he used a violent phrase with a racist history rooting back to police brutality against African Americans in the 1960s: "When the looting starts, the shooting starts."
A number of people outside the White House weighed in over the course of the day. On Friday morning, Facebook raised concerns to the White House about Trump's incendiary message and urged them to make a change even if it did not violate Facebook's policies, according to a source familiar with the outreach.
Later that day, Trump phoned Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg. During the call, Zuckerberg "expressed concerns about the tone and the rhetoric," according to a source familiar with the call.
Zuckerberg "didn't make any specific requests," the source said. A second source familiar with the call said the Facebook boss told Trump that he personally disagreed with the president's incendiary rhetoric and that by using language like this, Trump was putting Facebook in a difficult position.
Between the lines: Even aides who usually laugh or shrug their shoulders at Trump's more outrageous tweets considered this one a problem. Some said they saw direct political implications.
People close to the president, including several senior White House officials, have privately expressed concerns that his incendiary response to the Minneapolis riots will hurt him with two groups that could remove him from office in November: independents and suburban women.
These are groups who already tell pollsters they don't like Trump's tone, even if they like some of his policies.
One adviser said they saw it as the president's worst moment since Charlottesville.
A senior White House official, who typically likes it when Trump takes tough law-and-order positions, described the tweet as "stupid." The official described Trump's ultimate cleanup, in which the president claimed he wasn't suggesting that law enforcement should shoot rioters, as "pretty creative."
Why it matters: After so long working for him, Trump's inner circle usually shrugs at his tweets. So it's a rare moment when they sound the alarm.
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