By Manu Raju, Kevin Liptak, Ryan Nobles and Donald Judd, CNN
Updated 6:22 PM ET, Wed June 24, 2020
(CNN)President Donald Trump is doubling down on a strategy he believes worked to his advantage four years ago: seizing on divisive culture wars and using race-baiting rhetoric as he seeks to fire up his base to give him a second term in office. His GOP allies on Capitol Hill are looking on with alarm.
Uncertain how to respond to a President who has long favored incendiary remarks and targets any Republican who shows even the slightest signs of disloyalty, many in his party are aghast as Trump’s poll numbers plummet and large numbers of Americans disapprove of his handling of the twin crises that have dominated this election year.
A number of top Republicans told CNN that Trump needs to change course quickly — even as they readily acknowledge he has never been prone to take such advice.
“He’s good with the base,” Senate Majority Whip John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said Wednesday. “But all of the people who are going to decide in November are the people in the middle, and I think they want the President at a time like this … to strike a more empathetic tone.”
Thune later added: “It’ll probably require not only a message that deals with substantive policy, but I think a message that conveys perhaps a different tone.”
Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and close ally of Trump’s, said that the President’s reelection ultimately depends on how the economy is performing in October. But he added: “It’s been a couple bad weeks, and structurally we got to up our game.”
Continued
Mr Logic and Reason
Article URL : https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/24/politics/republican-reaction-trump-racist-rhetoric/index.html