But the president’s improvisations on Tuesday once against underscored that he cannot be controlled by his advisers.ĭemocrats were aghast at Trump’s comments. Some Trump allies hoped the retired Marine general might be able to succeed where others have failed: controlling some of Trump’s impulses. Kelly was brought into the White House less than a month ago to try to bring order and stability to a chaotic West Wing. One young staffer stood with her mouth agape. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders looked around the room trying to make eye contact with other senior aides. Chief of staff John Kelly crossed his arms and stared down at his shoes, barely glancing at the president. “I noticed that Stonewall Jackson’s coming down.” I wonder, is it George Washington next week and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You really do have to ask yourself where does it stop?”Īs Trump talked, his aides on the sidelines in the lobby stood in silence. Confederate monuments have become rallying points for supporters of both preserving and toppling them. Trump sided with those seeking to maintain the monument to Lee, equating him with some of the nation’s founders who also owned slaves. “But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides,” he said. He acknowledged there were “some very bad people” looking for trouble in the group protesting plans to remove the statue. But he returned to his original arguments Tuesday during an impromptu press conference in the lobby of his Manhattan skyscraper, declaring “there are two sides to a story.” In the immediate aftermath, Trump placed the blame on “many sides.” On Monday, at the urging of his aides, he delivered a more direct condemnation of white supremacists. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when a man plowed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters. Violence broke out Saturday in Charlottesville, a picturesque college town, after a loosely connected mix of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists assembled to protest the city’s decision to remove a towering statue of Confederate Gen.
Trump’s remarks were welcomed by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who tweeted, “Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth.” Marco Rubio of Florida said Trump should not allow white supremacists “to share only part of the blame.” House Speaker Paul Ryan declared in a tweet that “white supremacy is repulsive” and there should be “no moral ambiguity,” though he did not specifically address the president.
The blowback was swift, including from fellow Republicans. But the president’s retorts Tuesday suggested he had been a reluctant participant in that cleanup effort and renewed questions about why he seems to struggle to unequivocally condemn white nationalists. Trump’s advisers had hoped those remarks might quell a crush of criticism from Republicans, Democrats and business leaders. The president’s comments effectively wiped away the more conventional statement he delivered at the White House a day earlier when he branded members of the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as “criminals and thugs.” He showed sympathy for the fringe groups’ efforts to preserve Confederate monuments. NEW YORK (AP) - Combative and insistent, President Donald Trump declared anew Tuesday “there is blame on both sides” for the deadly violence last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, appearing to once again equate the actions of white supremacist groups and those protesting them.