Columnist marvels at the 'remarkable' optics of Trump's retreat to the White House bunker

Writing in the Washington Post this Monday, Aaron Blake points to a recent New York Times report that said President Trump retreated to the White House bunker as protesters swarmed outside the gates this weekend.

While it's likely that the Secret Service made the bunker decision, Trump nevertheless complied, "and the optics of it are remarkable," Blake writes.

"It would be one thing for this to happen after he had been proactively dealing with the crisis and speaking out; it’s quite another for it to come as he has been strongly criticized for his hands-off approach to one of the most serious cases of unrest across the country in recent decades," Blake continues.

Even some of the most right-wing voices in the pundit-sphere are critical of Trump's response to the unrest: The Daily Wire, Ann Coulter, radio host Michael Savage -- all expressing disappointment that Trump was nowhere to be found as the unrest escalated.

Trump had only one method of response to the unrest: his tweets -- but they have expectedly added fuel to the fire. As a result, the White House has apparently decided that him speaking publicly is too volatile.

"But the idea that Trump speaking out wouldn’t help is a very logical conclusion," Blake writes. "You only need to look at what happened during the last major racial flash point in his administration: the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017."

Read his full op-ed over at The Washington Post.