“You have to be a lot tougher”
by digby
This is Trump the authoritarian thug in all his glory. When Trump is asked how he would curb violent crime as he promises in his speech, this is what he said to Bill O’Reilly:
Pushed by Fox News host Bill O’Reilly to provide specifics on curbing violent crime in cities like Chicago, Donald Trump said Monday that he would simply put “tough” cops in charge.
“So, specifically, specifically. How do you do it? How do you do it?” O’Reilly asked.
“I know police in Chicago,” Trump replied. “If they were given the authority to do it, they would get it done.”
“How? How?” O’Reilly pressed.
“You have unbelievable—how? By being very much tougher than they are right now,” Trump said. “They are right now not tough. I mean, I could tell you this very long and quite boring story but when I was in Chicago, I got to meet a couple of very top police. I said, ‘How do you stop this? How do you stop this? If you were put in charge,’ to a specific person, ‘Do you think you could stop it?’ He said, ‘Mr. Trump, I would be able to stop it in one week.’ And I believed him 100 percent.”
Further efforts to clarify what exactly this “specific person” would do and what “tough police tactics” are did not get far.
“You have to have a warrant to arrest people,” O’Reilly said. “You can’t beat them up.”
Trump replied that he didn’t ask for an exact plan because he’s “not the mayor of Chicago.”
The conversation then turned to attacks on police officers.
Trump, who has actively courted the endorsement of the national Fraternal Order of Police union and campaigned as the “law and order” candidate said that he would serve as a “cheerleader for the police” as president.
“They are not being respected by our leadership and they literally—they don’t have spirit,” the Republican nominee said. “They lose their spirit. Every time something happens, it’s the police’s fault.”
“Alright. So your tone is pro-police,” O’Reilly said.
“You have to give them back their spirit,” Trump insisted.
“How do you stop the bad guys from attacking them?” O’Reilly asked.
“By giving them back your spirit and by allowing them to go and counterattack,” Trump said.
I guess that’s more of his outreach to urban communities. Kellyanne must be so proud.
The idea that he’s actually trying to do outreach to people of color is insulting to our intelligence.
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