Trump under fire for rally response
NEW YORK • The White House scrambled Sunday to deflect a political row over Donald Trump’s equivocal condemnation of violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., insisting his statement included “neo-Nazis and all extremist groups.”
However, the spin will do little to counter growing criticism from virtually all sides that the president was trying to shield white nationalists who helped propel him to power.
On Saturday, protests in Charlottesville ended violently when a car plowed into a group of anti-racist counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer, a 32-yearold paralegal and injuring at least 19 others. Heyer was in a group rallying against members of the Ku Klux Klan and other hard-right organizations who gathered in protest at the city’s decision to remove a statue commemorating Robert E. Lee, the storied Civil War Confederate general.
James Alex Fields Jr, 20, who had recently moved to Ohio from his Kentucky home, has been charged with second-degree murder.
In a photo taken by the New York Daily News, Fields was shown standing with a half-dozen other men, all wearing the Vanguard America uniform of khakis and white polo shirts. The men held white shields with Vanguard America’s black-and-white logo of two crossed axes. The statue of Robert E. Lee was in the background.
The Daily News said the photo was taken about 10:30 a.m. Saturday, just hours before authorities say Fields crashed his car into the crowd at 1:42 p.m.
The Anti-Defamation League says Vanguard America believes the U.S. is an exclusively white nation, and uses propaganda to recruit young white men online and on college campuses.
In a Twitter post, the group said it had handed out the shields “to anyone in attendance who wanted them,” and denied Fields was a member. “All our members are safe an (sic) accounted for, with no arrests or charges.”
As the local mayor condemned Heyer’s death as an act of “terrorism” and politicians of all sides denounced neo-Nazi thugs, Trump chose instead to condemn violence that he said was caused by “many sides.”
“Hate and the division must stop, and must stop right now,” he tweeted from his New Jersey golf club. “We have to come together as Americans with love for our nation and … true affection for each other.”
His words provoked a wave of outrage. Critics said his vague wording appeared to suggest a moral equivalence between the actions of peaceful protesters and those of far-right groups, some of whom flew swastikas and had supported his election.
Meanwhile, neo-Nazi websites filled with comments applauding the statement. “Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together,” said one Trump supporter on Dailystormer.com.
Sunday morning, a White House spokesman tried to defuse the anger, saying: “The president said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry, and hatred, and of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi, and all extremist groups. He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together.”
Concerns remain that Trump is quick to condemn violent jihadist groups as Islamic terrorists but reluctant to address the ideology behind homegrown, white extremists.
Michael Signer, the Democratic mayor of Charlottesville, described Heyer as the victim of “a terrorist attack with a car used as a weapon.”
Some of Trump’s closest family and advisers, along with his Republican allies, went further than the president.
“There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and neoNazis,” Ivanka, his daughter, tweeted. H R McMaster, the president’s national security adviser, said: “Anytime that you commit an attack against people to incite fear, it is terrorism.”
“Mr. President — we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism” wrote Sen. Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican, on Twitter.
Said Orrin Hatch, a longtime Utah Republican senator known for his staunchly conservative views: “We should call evil by its name. My brother didn’t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.”