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At Rally, Trump All but Promises to Pardon Arpaio At Rally, Trump Blames Media for Country’s Deepening Divisions
(35 minutes later)
PHOENIX — President Trump on Tuesday all but promised to pardon Joe Arpaio, the hard-line former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., who became a national symbol of the campaign against undocumented immigrants, and whose round-’em-up raids have landed him in legal trouble. PHOENIX — President Trump, stung by days of criticism that he sowed racial division in the United States after deadly clashes in Charlottesville, Va., accused the news media on Tuesday of misrepresenting what he insisted was his prompt, unequivocal condemnation of bigotry and hatred.
“I’ll make a prediction — I think he is going to be just fine,” an angry and defiant Mr. Trump told a campaign-style forum in Phoenix where he abandoned scripted remarks and launched into a half-hour tirade against the news media. “But I won’t do it tonight because I don’t want to cause any controversy.” After declaring, “What happened in Charlottesville strikes at the core of America,” Mr. Trump delivered a lengthy, aggrieved defense of his statements in the wake of the violence that left one person dead and the nation reeling at the images of swastikas in Thomas Jefferson’s hometown.
“But Sheriff Joe can feel good,” Mr. Trump added. Removing his statements about the violence from his jacket pocket, Mr. Trump glibly ticked off a list of racist groups that he had been urged to explicitly denounce, and ultimately did two days later. But he said the media quoted him selectively, accused him of responding too late, and ignored his message of unity.
Hours earlier, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, had said that Mr. Trump would not issue a pardon for Mr. Arpaio on Tuesday. “I hit ’em with neo-Nazi. I hit them with everything. I got the white supremacists, the neo-Nazi. I got them all in there, Let’s see. K.K.K., we have K.K.K.,” Mr. Trump said sardonically on Tuesday of a statement he issued two days after the Aug. 12 clashes, after being faulted for failing to condemn those groups in his initial response.
Mr. Arpaio was found guilty of criminal contempt of court after he flouted an order to stop detaining people his office suspected of being undocumented immigrants. Mr. Trump’s teased pardon of him energized the crowd at the convention center, where the president had been expected to stick to a theme of national unity but instead tripled down on his defense of his earlier statement about the racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Va. He also again accused the “dishonest media” of distorting his words. In an angry, unbridled and unscripted performance that rivaled the most sulfurous rallies of his presidential campaign, Mr. Trump sought to deflect the anger toward him against the news media, suggesting that the press, not him, was responsible for deepening divisions in the country.
“Why did it take a day? He must be a racist! It took a day,” Mr. Trump said, pretending to quote reporters who watched his immediate comment about the violence spurred by neo-Nazis that left a woman dead. “It’s time to expose the crooked media deceptions,” Mr. Trump said. He added: “They’re very dishonest people.”
“I don’t want to bore you with this, but it just — it shows you how dishonest they are,” Mr. Trump said, taking his statement from Aug. 12 out of his pocket and reading it again. He notably left out the part where he said there was violence on “many sides.” “The only people giving a platform to these hate groups is the media itself and the fake news,” he said.
It was the latest shift in what has become a nearly daily change of roles for this president: from the statesmanlike commander-in-chief who sought harmony on Monday evening by citing the example of America’s soldiers to the political warrior who preached unapologetic division to his supporters here, eliciting louder cheers with every epithet.
Mr. Trump implied that he planned to pardon Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., who became a national symbol of the crackdown on undocumented immigrants with round-‘em-up searches that landed him in legal trouble. “Was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job?” Mr. Trump asked to wild whoops and cheers.
“I won’t do it tonight because I don’t want to cause any controversy,” Mr. Trump said. “I’ll make a prediction: I think he’s going to be just fine.”
Returning repeatedly to Charlottesville, he said the media failed to focus on anarchists, who he said turned out in their “helmets and the black masks – Antifa,” Mr. Trump said, spitting out the nickname for the anti-fascist groups.
Mr. Trump accused the media of “trying to take away our history and our heritage,” an apparent reference to the debate over removing statues to heroes of the Confederacy, which prompted the rally by neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville.
The president singled out a familiar list of malefactors – from the “failing New York Times,” which he said erroneously had apologized for its coverage of the 2016 election, to CNN and the Washington Post, which he described as a lobbying arm for Amazon, the company controlled by the paper’s owner, Jeffrey Bezos.
Pointing repeatedly to the cameras in the middle of a cavernous convention center, Mr. Trump whipped the crowd into fevered chants of “CNN Sucks.” Members of the audience shouted epithets at the reporters, some demanding that they stop tormenting the president with questions about his ties to Russia.
The list of people in Arizona on Mr. Trump’s enemies list includes both of the state’s Republican senators: Jeff Flake, a longtime nemesis whom Mr. Trump has described as “toxic,” not to mention a “flake;” and John McCain, who cast the decisive Republican vote to dash Mr. Trump’s effort to repeal Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act in the Senate.
His voice thick with sarcasm, Mr. Trump said he had been instructed not to mention either of them by name. Of Mr. Flake, he said, “nobody knows who the hell he is.” Of Mr. McCain, he repeated over and over, “one vote” that cost Republicans health care.
Mr. Trump recited a familiar litany of complaints about lawless immigrants and naïve trade deals. But aside from a reference to renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico — he said he expected he would have to terminate the accord first — the speech was light on policy specifics.
At another point, he heralded the arrival of clean coal plants, adding, “meaning they’re taking out coal, and they’re gonna clean it,” which is not how clean coal plants function.
Mr. Trump also said little about foreign policy, offering only a bare summary of the Afghanistan policy he unveiled on Monday night, and suggesting that North Korea’s dictator, Kim Jong-un, had retreated in the face of Mr. Trump’s threats of military action against him.
Hours earlier, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, had said that Mr. Trump would not issue a pardon for Mr. Arpaio on Tuesday. Mr. Arpaio was found guilty of criminal contempt of court after he flouted an order to stop detaining people his office suspected of being undocumented immigrants.
He said in an interview on Tuesday night that he did not know Mr. Trump was going to mention his name at the rally and reiterated that he had not talked to the president since last fall. But he said he “wasn’t really surprised” to hear he would likely be pardoned.
“I just know him,” Mr. Arpaio said of the president. “And even though everybody said he’s not going to talk about it — deep in my heart I knew he was going to say something. I had no hints, but that’s who he is.”
Mr. Trump’s teased pardon of him energized the crowd at the convention center, where the president had been expected to stick to a theme of national unity but instead tripled down on his defense of statements about Charlottesville.
The forum drew scores of protesters and fanned fears of arousing more of the ugly nativist sentiments that exploded more than a week ago in Charlottesville.The forum drew scores of protesters and fanned fears of arousing more of the ugly nativist sentiments that exploded more than a week ago in Charlottesville.
Outside the sprawling convention center, the scene was a tense caldron, with hundreds of supporters screaming at one another, chanting slogans and hoisting placards that said “Fire Trump” and “Fake President.” Some voiced fears about the potential for the repeat of the violence that broke out in Charlottesville, while others griped about the 108-degree heat in Phoenix.Outside the sprawling convention center, the scene was a tense caldron, with hundreds of supporters screaming at one another, chanting slogans and hoisting placards that said “Fire Trump” and “Fake President.” Some voiced fears about the potential for the repeat of the violence that broke out in Charlottesville, while others griped about the 108-degree heat in Phoenix.
Mr. Trump spent the first 20 minutes of his speech defending his remarks about the racially tinged unrest. At one point, protesters interrupted his unscripted tirade.Mr. Trump spent the first 20 minutes of his speech defending his remarks about the racially tinged unrest. At one point, protesters interrupted his unscripted tirade.
“How did they get in here?” Mr. Trump said. “They’re supposed to be with the few people outside.”“How did they get in here?” Mr. Trump said. “They’re supposed to be with the few people outside.”
Reeling from criticism over his initial Aug. 12 statement, Mr. Trump was pushed to give additional remarks by his top advisers, as well as by his daughter Ivanka Trump. So he did, two days later. But that statement was criticized as too late.
So at an impromptu Aug. 15 news conference, where he was supposed to announce an infrastructure project and not take questions, Mr. Trump instead reverted to his initial statement. He described some of the people at the initial neo-Nazi march as peaceful protesters and “very fine people” who did not want to see statues of Confederate leaders removed.
But Mr. Trump has continued to fume about the criticism, and, according to people who have spoken with him, vented anger over cancellations at his club at Mar-a-Lago in response to his remarks.
So at Tuesday’s rally, the president returned to peak campaign form, mocking the ABC News host George Stephanopoulos for being short, calling The New York Times “fake news” and egging on a chant of “CNN sucks.”
“Antifa!” Mr. Trump said, mocking the counterprotesters who opposed the neo-Nazi ralliers.
Mr. Trump marinated in his own frustrations for at least 10 minutes, moments after early speakers like Vice President Mike Pence and Ben Carson, the housing and urban development secretary, insisted the president only embraced unity and would show that momentarily.
Earlier Tuesday, Mr. Trump traveled to a sun-scorched border post in southern Arizona to highlight his determination to crack down on illegal border crossings from Mexico.Earlier Tuesday, Mr. Trump traveled to a sun-scorched border post in southern Arizona to highlight his determination to crack down on illegal border crossings from Mexico.
The president’s first stop, in the desert city of Yuma, focused more on enforcement than rhetoric. Venturing into a giant hangar, Mr. Trump met with Border Patrol officials, who showed him a Predator drone, a helicopter and a boat that is used to scour the countryside near the border for illegal immigrants.The president’s first stop, in the desert city of Yuma, focused more on enforcement than rhetoric. Venturing into a giant hangar, Mr. Trump met with Border Patrol officials, who showed him a Predator drone, a helicopter and a boat that is used to scour the countryside near the border for illegal immigrants.
“What he’s done so far has worked,” Thomas Homan, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told reporters. “We need funding to make it permanent. We need to build a wall.”“What he’s done so far has worked,” Thomas Homan, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told reporters. “We need funding to make it permanent. We need to build a wall.”
Mr. Homan said the executive orders on immigration signed by the president had helped further stanch the flow of illegal crossings. But the measures he and other officials cited — such as electronic sensors along the border fences — were put in place well before Mr. Trump took office. Arizona was the site of one of Mr. Trump’s most raucous rallies during the presidential campaign, and if anything, the atmosphere was even more charged on this visit, his first as president. The Democratic mayor of Phoenix, Greg Stanton, pleaded with Mr. Trump to put off his trip, saying it would only aggravate racial tensions, coming so soon after clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters in Virginia.
Arizona was the site of one of Mr. Trump’s most raucous rallies during the presidential campaign, and if anything, the atmosphere was even more charged on this visit, his first as president.
The Democratic mayor of Phoenix, Greg Stanton, pleaded with Mr. Trump to put off his trip, saying it would only aggravate racial tensions, coming so soon after clashes between white supremacists and counterprotesters in Virginia.
The list of people in Arizona on Mr. Trump’s enemies list includes both of the state’s Republican senators: Jeff Flake, a longtime nemesis whom Mr. Trump has described as “toxic” and a “flake”; and John McCain, who cast the decisive Republican vote to dash Mr. Trump’s effort to repeal former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act in the Senate.
For his part, Mr. Trump has toggled unpredictably between appealing for unity in the wake of Charlottesville to reaffirming his inflammatory statements of last Tuesday, when he draw a moral equivalence between the white supremacists and those who tried to resist them.
On Monday night, the president prefaced a speech laying out his Afghanistan policy with a call for conciliation, telling the service members in his audience that they symbolized the ideals of individual rights and respect for minorities that are central to the American experience.
“Loyalty to our nation demands loyalty to one another,” he said in the most eloquent part of his 25-minute address. “Love for America requires love for all of its people. When we open our hearts to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice, no place for bigotry and no tolerance for hate.”