A reserved Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday called on President Trump to tone down his combative approach to the national protests for racial justice that have followed the death of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis last week, The Hill reports.

Clutching a Bible in the Capitol, Pelosi urged Trump to reach across the divides of race, party, region and religion to help the country heal instead.

"We would hope that the president of the United States would follow the lead of so many other presidents before him to be a healer-in-chief, and not a fanner of the flame," she said.

The appearance of a Bible was no accident. On Monday evening, just before a curfew took hold in Washington, Trump had strolled just north of the White House to the boarded up St. John’s Episcopal Church — a target of arsonists the night before — where he held a Bible aloft while the cameras clicked away.  

"It's a Bible," he said in short remarks. "We have a great country. That's my thoughts. The greatest country in the world."