Chief Dooley, Bishop Jackson, Attorney General Barr : Freedom and Justice for All
Excerpts from the White House Round Table
President Trump: In recent days, there have been vigorous discussion about how to ensure fairness, equality, and justice for all of our people. Unfortunately, there are some trying to stoke division and to push an extreme agenda, which we won’t go for, that will produce only more poverty, more crime, more suffering. This includes radical efforts to defund, dismantle, and disband the police. They want to get rid of the police forces. They actually want to get rid of it. And that’s what they do, and that’s where they go. And you know that, because at the top position, there’s not going to be much leadership; there’s not much leadership left.
Instead, we have to go the opposite way. We must invest more energy and resources in police training and recruiting and community engagement. We have to respect our police. We have to take care of our police. They’re protecting us. And if they’re allowed to do their job, they’ll do a great job. And you always have a bad apple, no matter where you go. You have bad apples. And there are not too many of them. And I can tell you there are not too many of them in the police department. We all know a lot of members of the police.
I was listening today; a friend of mine was on. A very important person said some of the best people he’s ever met are policemen, law enforcement people. And they’re taking care of people that, in many cases, they never even met before, and at great danger, at great risk. They get shot for no reason whatsoever, other than they’re wearing blue. They get knifed. You saw that the other night. It was a horrible thing.
But there is no opportunity without safety. In Chicago, 48 people were shot, and 18 people were killed in one day. Sunday, May 31st. Think of that. Forty-eight people shot; eighteen people killed. You don’t hear about it too much.
Every child should be able to grow up in a safe community, free from violence and fear. They’ve taken a lot of the police protection away in Chicago, and they have great, great police in Chicago. I know Chicago very well, but they’re not allowed to do what they can do better than anybody. They could do the job very easily.
Americans are good and virtuous people. We have to work together to confront bigotry and prejudice wherever they appear. But we’ll make no progress and heal no wounds by falsely labeling tens of millions of decent Americans as racists or bigots. We have to get everybody together. We have to be on the same — the same path, I think, Pastor. If we don’t do that, we have — we have problems. And we’ll do that. We’ll do it. I think we’re going to do it very easily. It’ll go quickly and it’ll go — it’ll go very easily.
We have so many different elements of strength in this country. We have such potential in this country. We have the greatest potential. We have the greatest country in the world. But we get off subject. We start thinking about things that don’t matter or don’t matter much. And the important things, we don’t even discuss. But we’re here to discuss some very important things.
Today, politicians make false charges, and they’re trying to distract from their own failed records. They have some very bad records. And these are usually the ones that cause the problems or can’t solve the problems. These are the same politicians who shipped our jobs away and took tremendous advantage of all Americans. But African American middle class — so much of that wealth and that money and those jobs went to China and other countries. And they get trapped. They get trapped. They get trapped in a government morass. They get trapped in bad government schools.
So I’m going to be announcing four steps to build safety and opportunity and dignity:
First, we’re aggressively pursuing economic development in minority communities. We’re doing it very powerfully. We’ve done it with Opportunity Zones, but we’re going to go above that. At the heart of this effort is increasing access to capital for small businesses, and that’s with minority owners in black communities. And we’re going to get it done, and it should have been done a long time ago. It’s been very difficult — very, very difficult for some people. It’s been unfairly difficult.
Third, we’re working to finalize an executive order that will encourage police departments nationwide to meet the most current professional standards for the use of force, including tactics for de-escalation.
Also, we’ll encourage pilot programs that allow social workers to join certain law enforcement officers so that they work together.
We’ll take care of our police. We’ll take — we’re not defunding police. If anything, we’re going the other route: We’re going to make sure that our police are well trained — perfectly trained, they have the best equipment. (Applause.)
Some of the things that we have heard — because I know a lot of the people in the audience, and they’re professionals at what they do, and they’re successful people, and we’re hearing things that are not even thinkable. I didn’t even hear — I’ve never even heard of this before last week. It was like — it started about a week ago, where I heard they want to close up all police forces. That’s what their attack on a very liberal governor in the state of Washington is: “We want the police force closed.”
It’s not like they want to, sort of, bring a little money into something else; they want it actually closed. I’m thinking, “What happens late at night when you make that call to 911 and there’s nobody there?” What do you have — what do you do? (Applause.) Whether you’re white, black, or anybody else, I mean, what do you do? You’re dialing, and there’s somebody breaking into a house, and it happens to be a violent person. There are violent people around, Pastor. Even you will admit that, right?
PASTOR MORRIS: Yes.
THE PRESIDENT: We want to think the best — but you have some very violent people. And when they’re breaking into your house at 12 o’clock in the evening, and you’re sitting there, and you don’t have a police force, they’re actually think- — they’re actually talking about not having a police force. Well, that’s not happening with us. We’re going to have stronger police forces because that’s what you need.
In Minneapolis, they went through three nights of hell. And then I was insistent on having the National Guard go in and do their work. It was like a miracle. It just — everything stopped. And I’ll never forget the scene. It’s not supposed to be a beautiful scene, but, to me, it was — after you watch policemen running out of a police precinct.
And it wasn’t their fault. They wanted to do what they had to do, but they weren’t allowed to do anything. It wasn’t really their fault. But they were running down the street. They weren’t allowed to do what they’re trained to do. And they took over the precinct. They burned it — essentially burned it down. I’m pretty good at construction. I want to tell you: That was almost what we call a complete renovation, if you’re lucky. (Laughter.)
And it was a very sad thing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that.
But we are very proud of the fact that I called — I said, “I’m sorry. We have to have them go in.” And they went in, and it was like a knife cutting butter — right through. Boom. I’ll never forget. You saw the scene: on that road, wherever it may be, in the city — Minneapolis. They were lined up. Boom — they just walked straight. And, yes, there was some tear gas and probably some other things, and the crowd dispersed, and they went through it. By the end of that evening — and it was a short evening — everything was fine and you didn’t hear too much about that location having problems anymore; they went to other locations.
And the same thing would happen. As an example, Seattle would be so easy to solve. It would be so easy to solve. We have a governor here of a great state; it’s called Texas. He would solve it very easily — (applause) — as would — as would other of your — as would other of your political leaders, including your lieutenant governor. They would solve it very easily.
It’s — a lot of it is common sense. I don’t even think it’s courage. I think it’s probably more courageous the other way, because I wouldn’t want to be doing it the other way. It’s very unsafe.
So I just want to tell you that we’re working on a lot of different elements having to do with law, order, safety, comfort, control. But we want safety. We want compassion. We want everything.
What happened two weeks ago was a disgrace when you see that. What happened on numerous occasions over the last two weeks — people were killed. A number of people were killed and it was very, very terrible and very, very unfair. A number of them were police officers. And it was a very unfair situation. We don’t want to see that.
And with strength, you wouldn’t even have that. They wouldn’t be in a position to do the kind of damage that they’ve done. They’ve destroyed people. They’ve destroyed businesses. They’ve destroyed African-American-owned small businesses that, hopefully, they’re going to come back. We’re providing funding for a lot of small businesses, and hopefully we’ll be able to get everybody online and get funding to be able to open up their stores and their small businesses again.
But we’re working to finalize an executive order that will encourage police departments nationwide to meet the most current professional standards of force. And that means force, but force with compassion. But if you’re going to have to really do a job — if somebody is really bad, you’re going to have to do it with real strength, real power.
And I said — and people said, “Oh, I don’t know if we like that expression.” I said, “We have to dominate the streets.” You can’t let that happen, what happened in New York City — the damage they’ve done. You have to dominate the streets. (Applause.)
And I was criticized for that statement. I made the statements, “We have to dominate the street.” And they said, “Oh that’s such a terrible thing.” Well, guess what? You know who dominated the streets? People that you don’t want to dominate the streets, and look at the damage they did.
So I’ll stick with that, and I think most of the people in this room — maybe every person in this room — will stick with that. And we’re doing it with compassion, if you think about it. We’re dominating the street with compassion, because we’re saving lives and we’re saving businesses. We’re saving families from being wiped out after working hard for 20 and 30 years. I saw the one woman: She worked 35 years building a store, and in one night, in was totally wiped out. It’s terrible.
And, fourth, we’re renewing our call on Congress to finally enact school choice now. School choice is a big deal — (applause) — because access to education is the civil rights issue of our time. And I’ve heard that for the last, I would say, year. But it really is; it’s the civil rights issue of our time. When you can have children go to a school where their parents want them to go. And it creates competition. And other schools fight harder because, all of a sudden, they say, “Wow. We’re losing it. We have to fight hard.” It gets better in so many different ways.
But there are groups of people against that. You have unions against it. You have others against it. And they’re not against it for the right reasons. They’re against it for a lot of the wrong reasons. And we’re going to get that straightened out. Now, we’ve done a lot of it. We’ve had tremendous success with choice.
We had choice in a lot of ways. We also have choice in the military. You know, before I came here, the vets would wait on line, Pastor. They’d be waiting — you — it wouldn’t be acceptable to you. I know it wouldn’t be acceptable to the Bishop. I know it’s not going to be acceptable to you. They’d wait for four or five weeks to get on line — a vet — where they were sick. They were feeling badly, and they’d get on line, and they’d say, “There’s a six-day wait, sir.” “There’s a two-week wait.” “There’s a one-month wait.” And you’d have people on line that weren’t very ill, and they’d be terminally ill before they got to see a doctor, and they’d die.
And for years and years, they’ve been trying to get Veterans Choice. That means if you can’t get to a doctor reasonably quickly, you go outside, you go to a local doctor around where you live, and the government pays the bill. And, by the way, it sounds expensive; it’s very cheap, by comparison. It’s actually much better. Now, most importantly, we take care of our vets. By far, most importantly. (Applause.)
But it’s one of those many cases where it’s actually less costly and better. Sometimes you’ll see a building — it costs less money than another building that costs more, because the one that built the one that cost more, this one looks better. The one that’s cheaper, it looks better. They say, “How much more did you spend for that building?” Actually, we spent less. You can do that. It’s called: “You have to know what you’re doing” — (laughter) — if you know what you’re doing. That’s only good for the real estate people in here, of which there are plenty, by the way.
THE PRESIDENT: So, I just want to say this is one of my favorite places. I know we’re doing very well here.
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Thank you, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you for convening this discussion. And I’d like to thank the many impressive leaders — civic leaders, religious leaders, and colleagues from law enforcement — who are here.
That ghastly spectacle in Minneapolis was really jarring to the whole nation, and it forced us to confront and think about, reflect on longstanding issues in our nation. Those issues obviously relate to the relationship between law enforcement and the African American community.
But just to step back a little and take a broader view initially, I’ve been thinking about how do we achieve the full American Dream for all communities. African American communities, all communities. And one of the reasons I’m proud to serve in this administration is because I think the President is moving forward on the critical elements necessary to provide and ensure that opportunity.
First and foremost, economic growth. Without growth, there is no opportunity. Second — (applause) — second, education. I think Condi Rice said a few years ago it’s the civil rights issue of our time. Because without a good education, they are not allowing our young people to seize their opportunities and pursue their dreams. (Applause.)
And as the President mentioned, it’s only by empowering parents and giving them the power to choose the education for their children that we’re ever going to be able to obtain that.
Third, I think, is moral discipline. And our young people, they have to have the discipline to seize the opportunity, to make momentary sacrifices for later gain. And traditionally, that has come — and people can find it, perhaps, from many sources — but traditionally that has come from religion, which our founders believed was the foundation of our republic. And — (applause) — and we — we have to stop policies that undermine religion or relegate religion out of the public square. (Applause.)
But now I get to my job, which is safety. Without safety you cannot have progress. You can’t have a life — a decent life in a community. And, you know, this was struck home to me 30 years ago when I visited Trenton when I was Attorney General last time, and I went to a small barber shop in an African American neighborhood. And there were people there in their 60s and 70s, and they said, “Mr. Barr, we’re in our golden years, and we are living behind bars. Look down the street. All the bars are on our windows, and the criminals run free on the street.”
Now, we’ve made a lot of progress since then; the crime rate has been cut in half. And a big part of that has been improvement in policing, and the progress we’ve made in policing, and, yes, the progress that police have made — police departments have made in building relationships with the community.
I think law enforcement has understood for a long time that there is distrust in the African American community toward the law enforcement system. And when you reflect on our history, you could understand why: Because for most of our history, just up until the last 60 years, the institutions in this country — the laws and the institutions were explicitly discriminatory. There was not equal protection of the law, by law. And it’s only been since Jim Crow that our laws have been changed to provide for equal justice.
And what we’ve had, really, since — and so the Civil Rights effort, up until that time, was to tear down institutions. But I don’t think now is the time to be tearing down our institutions, because we’ve been on a march for the last 50 years of reforming our institutions, and we don’t need to tear them down. We have to be mature about this, and when we see problems, we have to redouble our efforts to reform our institutions and make sure they’re in sync with our values.
And I don’t think anyone who’s honest would deny that we’ve made a lot of progress in policing over the last 50 years. And, in fact, you know, one of the things about this episode in Minneapolis was how fast both the state and federal law enforcement responded to — to dealing with — with that action.
So I think that, while we saw something very bad, it has helped perhaps galvanize the will of the country to bring good out of that. And we can’t let that incident obscure the fact that progress has been made; that policemen are, by and large, by overwhelming majority, good, decent people who care about their community and put their lives on the line for us, their neighbors. (Applause.) And we can’t lose sight of the fact and can’t let this event obscure the fact that the — the real oppression and danger to our communities comes more from violent crime and lawlessness than it does from the police. (Applause)
Now, we’ve never — we’ve never had — we’ve never had a President who is more committed to reforming law enforcement. And he’s done that with the FIRST STEP Act and with the first police commission since Lyndon Johnson. And I’m very optimistic about, you know, what we’re going to be able to do — given his leadership, but also given the leadership of our police forces, which around the country increasingly have become better and better led.
And the — I think the police profession is itself committed to addressing the issues that we saw in Minneapolis and completing the process of professionalizing policing in this country.
And, as the President said, we’re working on a number of things through the commission that he set up and also through an executive order to propel that process even faster by looking at how we can encourage the adoption of guidelines about the use of force that are acceptable, both to the community and to the — and to the police profession, but also to encourage certification of police forces, and also through such activities as increasing grants to encourage the use of co-responders.
More and more, our police are being asked to deal with problems that — that, you know, hasn’t previously been the problem of law enforcement. They have to deal with homeless people. They have to deal with a lot of mental health issues. They have to deal with, you know, drug addiction, the drug addicts, and so forth. And providing some additional support to the police in these areas is going to be important.
So let me just say that the Department of Justice is committed to support the President’s efforts here, do all we can to bring good out of this bad incident.
Surgeon General, please go ahead. Do you want to go?
SURGEON GENERAL ADAMS: Secretary Carson is going to go.
THE PRESIDENT: Go ahead. Why don’t you go, and then Ben will go? Is that okay?
SURGEON GENERAL ADAMS: Well, thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate it. (Applause.) Thank you, everyone, for coming today. Thank you to the panelists.
I just want to start off by saying that many people across the country and across the great state of Texas are hurting right now due to the tragedy that occurred to George Floyd. And I just want to extend my condolences to the Floyd family and to the entire Texas community, because I know that you all live together, you work together, you play together, and you hurt together here in Texas. And so, I want you to know that I feel that for you. (Applause.)
The President asked me to give you a quick update on America’s COVID-19 response. Thanks to cooperation with state and local partners, we’re making progress against the virus — we are — and towards a safe reopening.
Through strong public and private partnerships, America has now done more than 20 million tests. And that number is a big number. It’s not just about the number; it’s also about how many of those tests are coming back positive. We have a positive rate under 6 percent nationally. And from a public health perspective, if we’re under 10 percent positive, we’re doing a good job.
So there’s a lot of challenges out there, but I want you all to know that we are moving in the right direction. The data shows that we are moving in the right direction as a nation.
And this has happened, in part, thanks to opening of over 500 community-based testing sites through the work of private sector partners and the United States Public Health Service, which I helped lead with Admiral Giroir. Seventy percent of those sites are in CDC-designated vulnerable areas. That means that we’re taking the testing to those who need it the most, to those who are most at risk. We also have testing at 92 percent of America’s community health centers, which predominantly serve low-income areas and communities of color.
We’ve helped equip our frontline workers, our healthcare heroes, with 94 million N95 respirators, 149 million surgical masks, and more than a billion gloves. And a large proportion of those supplies, at the President and the Secretary’s direction, are going to nursing homes.
And I just want to — I see the governor over there. I want to give you all a shout-out. Texas has led the way in nursing home testing. A hundred percent of their nursing homes have been tested. They’re leading the way in testing people in corrections facilities. Over 95 percent of people in corrections facilities have been tested. And that is something you all should be tremendously proud of. (Applause.)
And these efforts have allowed states to proceed with a safe reopening, while we work with states to monitor the incoming data. We know we’re going to have clusters, but while we respond to spikes, and we adjust policies as needed.
But I want you to know that safe reopening is crucial for other areas in health too. We need Americans to be able to return to cancer screenings. My wife just finished cancer treatment. If she’d had to wait six months to get her cancer screened, she might not be here today. We need people to get their surgeries. We need people to get their vaccinations. 4.2 million children are behind on vaccinations now because of the COVID closures. We know every 1 percent increase in unemployment equates to a 1.3 percent increase in suicides. 1.3 percent increase in suicides.
CHIEF DOOLEY: Mr. President, thank you for this opportunity. I’m humbled to be here. I’m Chief Dooley, Glenn Heights Department. My experience is based on serving in a large department and a small department. And I can tell you that there is some phenomenal police work being done out here across the board — across the board.
But there’s also some inconsistencies in our procedures, our policies, our hiring practices, our termination practices, our disciplinary practices. And I strongly support the need for standardization based on best practices for all police departments in our country. (Applause.)
I thank the President for his foresight, for making these things come to happen. I know they’re coming, and we need it. We are a country of very good departments, but we need to be a country of great departments. And this message today is about the transition to greatness. We have an opportunity in this country to transform the future of law enforcement.
But we need to make sure that we have a relentless pursuit of dedication to public service at all times and at all levels, specifically national consistence policy on use of force — every chief would be in support of that; mandatory participation on a national use for database — use of force database — yes, it needs to happen; development of natural — national statements for discipline and termination of police officers — that needs to happen; development of a public — a police officer decertification database — yes, we need to be able to get those bad apples out of our industry so what happened will never happen again. (Applause.)
We need to enhance the police leadership and culture, and it starts at the top. We have some great leaders in this country, but we can always be better. We can always continuously improve. We need to implement improved recruitment, hiring, and promotion practices that are dedicated to having officers that are relentless- — relentlessly pursuing the service of not the community, but our community. It’s about — no, not dividing us, but uniting us and understand that we come from the community.
We need to enhance the ability for police agencies to implement effective discipline. We need to make sure that we have policies that establish a framework for a community policemen engagement that fully embraces that police officers serve, protect, and connect everyone in our community so that we all can become better.
We need training. This is not the time to defund police departments. (Applause.) When an organization or a business is struggling to be better, now is not the time to take away those resources. You provide them, and you hold them accountable, and you set expectations, and you — and you manage them so they can be better. That’s what you do. We need more training. We need more specific training that’s dedicated to service of those that — everyone we enact with on a daily basis: those that are homeless, those that suffer from mental illness, those that suf- — that need food. Okay, we need the training to be able to connect those people we interact with with those that can provide those services. That’s what we need in this country.
I want to end with just these few thoughts. I have a very simple saying to my officers — that we serve, protect, and connect, and together is better. And as I look around this room, I know that together we will become better, and we will take this country to great levels under the leadership of Donald Trump. (Applause.)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Thank you, very much. (Applause.) Thank you very much. That was beautiful.
So it’s time to say goodbye, but we’ll be back. We’ll be back. And I just want to thank — Bishop, you’ve been my friend for a long time, and I appreciate everything you’ve done and everything you’ve said.
BISHOP JACKSON: Thank you.
THE PRESIDENT: A great unifying source of strength and everything else, and I appreciate it very much.
BISHOP JACKSON: Thank you. Can I add one last thing before you leave?
BISHOP JACKSON: I’m tired of people blaming the current administration and others in our generation. These problems began many years ago. (Applause.) And what has been exciting to me is it was the church that began the abolitionist movement.
BISHOP JACKSON: It was the church and whites and blacks working together that started the NAACP. It didn’t have a black leader at the beginning of time. It was the church that led through in the Civil Rights movement. So I want to offer you my support in these listening sessions, in that the church needs to come together. I believe we can unify better than any group.
And what we’re looking for you to do is to give structural guidance, which you’re working on, and you’ve — you’ve already brought forth some amazing things. But I want to affirm that Democrats can’t kneel down and wear Kente cloth and stop black pain. Republicans can’t take some one-time act and stop black — black pain. But I believe we’ve got a man here who’s courageous enough to begin something that’s tough, and that we’re going to, this time, heal.
And so, I weep over this. I pray for you, as you know.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. I know.
BISHOP JACKSON: And we believe that we’re going to get it right.
I got to say one last thing. Being a — I lost my late wife a couple years ago. I found out, in dealing with her, that sometimes you just got to listen, feel her pain. If you try to fix it too early, you’re going to make a mistake. Your listening sessions are wise because it’s going to give that cathartic process a chance.
So I don’t want to take up too much time, sir, but I wanted to say that. The people here, I challenge you Christians — black, white, Asian: Let’s come together, and let’s provide a safety net, and then we’ll work with business, and then we’ll work along with the administration. But don’t push them out here up front, and say, “Fix it now. Fix it now. Fix it now. Fix it now,” because it’s never worked that way. Thank you, sir.