US Treasury chief defends Trump after criticism by classmates
WASHINGTON: US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Saturday defended President Donald Trump’s response to bloodshed following a rally of white supremacists and neo-Nazis, rejecting calls from former Yale classmates that he resign from the administration in protest.
A group of 359 people from Mnuchin’s 1985 class at the Ivy League university had signed an open letter posted Friday, saying it was his “moral obligation to resign ... because President Trump has declared himself a sympathizer with groups whose values are antithetical to those values we consider fundamental to our sacred honor as Americans, as men and women of Yale, and as decent human beings.” Mnuchin responded Saturday that he “strongly” condemned those “filled with hate and with the intent to harm others.”
“While I find it hard to believe I should have to defend myself on this, or the president, I feel compelled to let you know that the president in no way, shape or form, believes that neoNazi and other hate groups who endorse violence are equivalent to groups that demonstrate in peaceful and lawful ways,” Mnuchin, who is Jewish, said in a statement.
“I don’t believe the accusations against the president are accurate and I believe that having highly talented men and women in our country surrounding the president in his administration should be reassuring to you and all the American people.”
“As long as I am treasury secretary I will do the best job I can for the American people and provide the best advice I can to the president.” On Aug. 12 in Charlottesville, Virginia, a 20-year-old suspected Nazi sympathizer plowed his car into a crowd of anti-racism protesters, leaving one woman dead and 19 others injured.
At a press conference Tuesday at Trump Tower in New York, the president — flanked by Mnuchin — said “there was blame on both sides” following the rally by white supremacists and neo-Nazis that was met by counter-protesters.
Trump has come under fire from Republicans and Democrats alike, and his remarks spurred several CEOs to resign from White House business advisory panels. In the end Trump dissolved two of them altogether.
Also on Saturday, Trump thanked Steve Bannon for his “service” a day after the US president parted ways with his controversial former chief strategist and key campaign ally.
A champion of the nationalistpopulist agenda that carried Trump to power last November, the 63-year-old Bannon left a White House reeling from the fallout over the president’s response to a violent white supremacist rally.
“I want to thank Steve Bannon for his service. He came to the campaign during my run against Crooked Hillary Clinton — it was great! Thanks,” Trump tweeted Saturday.
Bannon, a hero of the so-called “alt right” whose presence in the West Wing was controversial from the start, had become the nucleus of one of several competing power centers in a chaotic White House.
The departure, capping one of the most disastrous weeks of the chaotic young administration, is a nod to members of Trump’s government and his Republican Party grown increasingly frustrated with the anti-establishment firebrand.
It remains to be seen what role the serial provocateur will continue to play from outside the White House, but Bannon himself vowed to keep pushing Trump’s right-wing agenda, as he returned to his former home at the ultra-conservative website Breitbart News. “If there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents — on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America,” Bannon said in an interview within hours of leaving the White House.
Trump welcomed Bannon’s return to Breitbart in a second tweet, predicting: “Steve Bannon will be a tough and smart new voice at @ BreitbartNews ... maybe even better than ever before. Fake News needs the competition!”