Under pressure, Trump condemns hate groups

President’s initial response to white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., widely criticized

WASHINGTON • Under relentless pressure, President Donald Trump on Monday named and condemned “repugnant” hate groups and declared that “racism is evil” in a far more forceful statement than he’d made earlier after deadly, racefuelled weekend clashes in Charlottesville, Va.

Trump’s initial failure on Saturday to denounce the groups by name — instead he bemoaned violence on “many sides” — prompted criticism from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats. This time, the president described members of the KKK, neoNazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as “criminals and thugs” in a prepared statement he read at the White House.

“Racism is evil,” he said, singling out the hate groups as “repugnant to everything that we hold dear as Americans.”

“Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America,” he said.

In his remarks he also called for unity.

“We must love each other, show affection for each other and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry and violence. We must rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that bring us together as Americans,” he said.

Trump also, for the first time, mentioned Heather Heyer by name, as he paid tribute to the 32-year-old woman killed when a car plowed into a group of anti-racist counterprotesters in Charlottesville.

The president left after his statement without acknowledging reporters’ shouted questions. At an event on trade later in the day, he was asked why it took two days for him to offer an explicit denunciation of the hate groups.

“They have been condemned,” Trump responded before offering a fresh criticism of some media as “fake news.”

Trump noted the Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation into the car crash that killed Heyer. “To anyone who acted criminally in this weekend’s racist violence, you will be held fully accountable. Justice will be delivered,” he said.

His attorney general, Jeff Sessions, said earlier that the violence “does meet the definition of domestic terrorism in our statute.”

Sessions told ABC “You can be sure we will charge and advance the investigation toward the most serious charges that can be brought, because this is an unequivocally unacceptable and evil attack that cannot be accepted in America.”

James Alex Fields Jr., 20, has been charged with second-degree murder in Heyer’s death.

Trump gave his statement after meeting with Sessions and FBI director Christopher Wray.

In the hours after the incident on Saturday, Trump addressed the violence in broad strokes, saying that he condemns “in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.”

That was met with swift bipartisan criticism.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, said he spoke to Trump in the hours after the clashes and twice told the president “we have to stop this hateful speech, this rhetoric.” He said he urged Trump “to come out stronger” against the actions of white supremacists.

Republicans joined Democrats in criticizing the president for not specifically calling out white nationalists. Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado said Sunday on NBC, “This isn’t a time for innuendo or to allow room to be read between the lines. This is a time to lay blame.”

The White House scrambled to stem the tide of criticism, dispatching aides to the Sunday talk shows and sending out a statement that more forcefully denounced the hate groups.

White nationalists had assembled in Charlottesville to vent their frustration against the city’s plans to take down a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Counter-protesters massed in opposition.

Alt-right leader Richard Spencer and former KKK leader David Duke attended the demonstrations. Duke told reporters the white nationalists were working to “fulfil the promises of Donald Trump.”

Trump’s initial comments drew praise from the neoNazi website Daily Stormer, which wrote: “Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. ... No condemnation at all.”

Early Monday, the CEO of drugmaker Merck, Kenneth Frazier, said he was resigning from the President’s American Manufacturing Council, citing “a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.”

Trump lashed back almost immediately on Twitter, saying Frazier “will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!”