George Will on Trump: I Don’t Think Americans Want an Angry President

On this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” while commenting on the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s speech to the Republican National Convention, Washington Post columnist George Will said Americans do not want an “angry president” on the TVs.

Partial transcript as follows:

WILL: The defining characteristic of the speaker, the nominee himself and the convention itself with the lock her up chance was anger. I don’t think the American people have elected an angry president, someone defined by anger, someone who vision is anger since Andrew Jackson. And that was a 100 years before the invention of television, which brings presidents into our living room more than anyone other than family members. I’m not sure the American people want anger in their living room. Mrs. Clinton said Kaine is everything that Trump/Pence aren’t, he could have said he is cheerful, a happy warrior. A phrase applied to Democratic nominee, Al Smith and later to another Democratic nominee, Hubert Humphrey. So the question is, how do they deal with this problem with the perception of Mrs. Clinton? I think they’re going to fall back on Joe Biden’s wonderful axiom, don’t compare me to the all mighty, compare me to the alternative. And they are going to say the alternative is Donald Trump and do you want an angry man in your living room?

WALLACE: You say he is angry. Trump is pushing back on the idea that his was a grim speech, or that he was angry, they’re saying he was strong. He was telling it like it is.

WILL: Well, Donald Trump is the one who was described contemporary America as a “hell hole,” that’s a quote. When you describe America as a place for people who are afraid to leave their houses, poverty and terrorism, I think most Americans think we have a wonderful country with serious problems. I don’t think they think it is a hell hole.

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