Maryland's Republican Governor, Larry Hogan, joined Jake Tapper on Sunday to discuss the nationwide protests and the White House's disastrous response to it. Hogan didn't mince words, especially when addressing Donald Trump's inflammatory rhetoric and how he is actually making the situation worse.
TAPPER: Governor Hogan, President Trump has responded to the events we have seen in the last few days by calling those responsible for the looting and arson -- quote -- "thugs" and saying, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." You have suggested that his rhetoric was -- quote -- "inflammatory" and not helpful. Explain why.
GOV. LARRY HOGAN (R-MD): Look, I think the -- one of the most important things that a leader can do right now -- and I went through this in 2015 during the riots in Baltimore -- my -- one of my primary focuses was to try to lower the temperature.
And that's not helpful. It's not lowering the temperature. It's sort of -- it's sort of continuing to escalate the rhetoric. And I think it's just the opposite of the message that should have been coming out of the White House.
TAPPER: What lessons could you teach Minnesota and the nation, having dealt with the Freddie Gray crisis?
And for those who don't remember, Freddie Gray was picked up. He was in a police vehicle that -- and he was in a coma after that. It was a rough ride, people said. And the police officers ultimately were not convicted.
HOGAN: Well, I think we dealt with this crisis in Baltimore really decisively and quickly. We acted quickly.
I -- within a couple of hours, we sent in 4,000 members of the National Guard and 1,000 extra police officers to try to maintain peace and to protect the citizens of Baltimore, the vast majority of whom were protesting peacefully, which is what I think we're seeing in many cities across America.
But we had a smaller element who was burning and looting. And we were trying to stop that violence. And we did it very successfully. After the first few hours, there was no more burning or looting or violence. Nobody else got hurt. But we let the people protests go on for a solid week in Baltimore.
And I immediately went to the city. I walked the streets of Baltimore for a week, talked with leaders in the community.
And I think my advice to these leaders in other states would be to not let the situation get out of control. We -- our theory was kind of peace through strength. We did not let it escalate to violence, where crowds were overpowering police.
But we separated the violent acts and the destructive acts from the peaceful protesting. And we tried to get in there and communicate with the with the citizens. And, frankly, many of the people in the community are also trying to stop the violence and all of the bad activity that's taking place. They don't want to see it. And it's not -- it's not really helpful to any -- any part of the situation.
Are we sure that Governor Hogan is really a Republican? He has been pretty blunt in his assessment of Donald Trump and the White House over the years, but especially through the coronavirus outbreak and now the nationwide protests. Incoming angry tweet from Twitler in 3...2...1...
