Friend --

I've been in the Senate for 45 years, and I've never seen our country in such collective pain.

While in the throes of a pandemic that's taken the lives of over 100,000 Americans, we are also experiencing a reckoning of this nation's epidemic of police brutality against its Black citizens in particular. (Please click here to see my full statement on the Senate floor yes‌terday concerning the killing of George Floyd.)

In the past 45 years, I've served alongside eight presidents. And in the midst of so much trauma, I've never seen a president less capable of or interested in healing and uniting this country. President Trump has spent the past week sowing discord on Twitter and on television. He has threatened state-sanctioned violence against peaceful protesters and has also called them "thugs."

We are in desperate need of a consoler-in-chief -- something every other president I've served with, Democrat and Republican, has been called to and capable of at some point in their presidencies -- and President Trump only knows how to be an instigator-in-chief. Here's something I never imagined I would say: He's president of this country in name only.

Fortunately, our most recent past president is stepping in to fill this void of leadership when we need it most. Earlier this week, President Obama urged Americans to take our anger to‌day and turn it into lasting change tomor‌row.

To quote President Obama, "It is a time to meet anguish with action." Visit this toolkit put together by the Obama Foundation to take action to‌day.

We all must engage. We all must act.

Thank you and sincerely,

Patrick Leahy
U.S. Senator