Trump fires back at resigning advisors

China Daily | Updated: 2017-08-16 08:48

WASHINGTON - Bowing to pressure from right and left, President Donald Trump condemned white supremacist groups by name on Monday, declaring "racism is evil" after two days of public equivocation and internal White House debate over the deadly race-fueled clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In a hastily arranged statement at the White House, Trump branded members of the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as "criminals and thugs".

The groups are "repugnant to everything that we hold dear as Americans", he said.

In his initial remarks on the violence on Saturday, Trump did not single out the groups and instead bemoaned violence on "many sides". Those remarks prompted stern criticism from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, who urged him to seize the moral authority of his office to condemn hate groups.

Trump's softer statement on Saturday had come as graphic images of a car plowing into a crowd in Charlottesville were playing continually on television. White nationalists had assembled in the city to protest plans to take down a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, and counter-protesters gathered in opposition.

Fights broke out, and then a man drove a car into the opponents of the white supremacists. One woman was killed and many more badly hurt. Twenty-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. of Ohio is charged with second-degree murder and other counts.

It's unclear whether Trump's efforts will ease the political pressure he has faced in recent days.

In addition to the disapproval from his own party, three members of a White House advisory council Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich announced they were resigning from the panel in protest.

"America's leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all men are created equal," Frazier wrote on Twitter in announcing his resignation on Monday.

Trump didn't wait long to respond. "Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"

In a later post, Trump accused Merck of being "a leader in higher & higher drug prices while at the same time taking jobs out of the U.S. Bring jobs back & LOWER PRICES."

Several hours later, Under Armour founder and chief executive Kevin Plank also announced he would step down from the panel.

Intel chief Brian Krzanich also announced his departure from the panel in a blunt statement which said he wanted to "call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues".

Later on Monday, Trump tried to pin the blame for the controversy on one of his favorite targets: The media. He tweeted that the media "will never be satisfied... truly bad people".

Ap - Afp