President Trump could take action on race and policing by issuing an executive order, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Wednesday.
The president could announce action on Thursday when he travels to Dallas, Texas, to meet with faith leaders, law enforcement officials and small-business owners. The White House said the president will “discuss solutions to historic economic, health and justice disparities in American communities.”
In addition to the roundtable at a church, Mr. Trump will attend a $10 million private campaign fundraiser in Dallas.
“We do believe that we’ll have proactive policy prescriptions, whether that means legislation or an executive order,” Ms. McEnany said during an interview on “Fox & Friends.” She didn’t elaborate, saying the president is still weighing options.
It was the first time the White House raised the possibility of a presidential order on the issue of policing, after House Democrats introduced a sweeping proposal this week to change police practices, including a national registry of officers with a history of disciplinary problems.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and presidential advisers Jared Kushner and Ja’Ron Smith met on Tuesday with Sen. Tim Scott, South Carolina Republican who is crafting GOP legislation on police practices. Ms. McEnany called the meeting “very productive.”
The president opposes calls by some Democrats to “defund” police departments in response to the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.
At a meeting with law enforcement officials at the White House this week, the president and Attorney General William P. Barr heard proposals for enhanced training of police around the nation.
Livingston County, Illinois, Sheriff Tony Childress urged the administration to adopt mandatory “de-escalation training” for all officers; prohibition of all physical restraint maneuvers on a person’s neck or head; requiring all officers to render medical aid to all people; and requiring officers to intervene “when physical forces are being … inappropriately applied and [are] no longer required.”
The president said the administration is exploring ideas about how we can do [policing] if possible, in a much more gentle fashion.”
“A thing like [Mr. Floyd’s death] should never have happened, and plenty of things shouldn’t have happened,” Mr. Trump said. “But we can’t give up the finest law enforcement anywhere in the world.”
