Both Bushes rebuke Trump’s neo-Nazi stance
WASHINGTON— The last two Republican presidents — George W. Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush — issued an implicit rebuke of the current president Wednesday, as party elders scrambled to limit the fallout from Donald Trump’s stance on neoNazis.
“America must always reject racial bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred in all forms,” read the statement issued by Bush aides.
The Bushes have largely kept on the sidelines during the Trump presidency. The younger Bush has maintained a strict policy of resisting the urge to inject himself into contemporary politics, deeming that unfair to the current national leader — whether that was Trump or Barack Obama. But amid the uproar over Trump’s warmth toward neo-Nazis and white supremacists, the fatherson presidents apparently could not hold their tongues any longer.
Also on Wednesday, Senate Major- ity Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky forcefully distanced himself and the party from Trump’s stance.
“There are no good neo-Nazis, and those who espouse their views are not supporters of American ideals and freedoms. We all have a responsibility to stand against hate and violence, wherever it raises its evil head,” McConnell said in a statement issued by his office, in part to denounce a rally planned by hate groups in Lexington.
While the Bushes’ rare joint state- ment didn’t mention Trump, their message was clearly aimed at distancing themselves — and the Republican Party — from the president’s comments about the violence in Virginia. Before the Bushes and McConnell weighed in, House Speaker Paul Ryan was the highestranking Republican to publicly distance himself from the president.
Trump’s critics, and many of his fellow Republicans, viewed his comments as a wink of approval toward white supremacists.
“We must be clear,” Ryan tweeted. “White supremacy is repulsive . . . There can be no moral ambiguity.”
White supremacist leader Richard Spencer and David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard, had welcomed Trump’s stance as an affirmation of their views and tactics.