Trump defends Confederate statues, berates his critics
Trump defends Confederate statues, berates his critics
BRIDGEWATER, N.J. – With
prominent Republicans openly questioning his competence and moral
leadership, President Donald Trump burrowed deeper into the racially
charged debate over Confederate memorials and lashed out at members of
his own party in the latest controversy to engulf his presidency.
Out of sight, but still online,
Trump tweeted his defense of monuments to Confederate icons — bemoaning
rising efforts to remove them as an attack on America's "history and
culture."
And he berated his critics who, with increasingly sharper language,
have denounced his initially slow and then ultimately combative comments
on the racial violence at a white supremacist rally last weekend in
Charlottesville, Virginia.
Trump was much quicker Thursday to condemn violence
in Barcelona, where more than a dozen people were killed when a van
veered onto a sidewalk and sped down a busy pedestrian zone in what
authorities called a terror attack.
He then added to his expression of support a tweet
reviving a debunked legend about a U.S. general subduing Muslim rebels a
century ago in the Philippines by shooting them with bullets dipped in
pig blood.
"Study what General Pershing of the United States did
to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for
35 years!" Trump wrote.
Trump's unpredictable, defiant and, critics claim,
racially provocative behavior has clearly begun to wear on his
Republican allies.
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, whom Trump considered for a
Cabinet post, declared Thursday that "the president has not yet been
able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he
needs to" in dealing with crises. And Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska
tweeted, "Anything less than complete & unambiguous condemnation of
white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK by the @POTUS is unacceptable.
Period."
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said Trump's "moral authority is compromised."
Trump, who is known to try to change the focus of
news coverage with an attention-grabbing declaration, sought to shift
Thursday from the white supremacists to the future of statues.
"You can't change history, but you can learn from
it," he tweeted. "Robert E. Lee. Stonewall Jackson — who's next,
Washington, Jefferson? So foolish. ...
"Also the beauty that is being taken out of our
cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be
comparably replaced!"
"Sad to see the history and culture of our great
country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and
monuments," he tweeted.
Trump met separately Thursday at his golf club in
nearby Bedminster with the administrator of the Small Business
Administration and Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a longtime Trump supporter.
Trump also prepared for an unusual meeting Friday at the Camp David
presidential retreat in Maryland with his national security team to
discuss strategy for South Asia, including India, Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
Vice President Mike Pence was cutting short a long-planned Latin America tour to attend the meeting.
Though out of public view, Trump sought to make his
voice heard on Twitter as he found himself increasingly under siege and
alone while fanning the controversy over race and politics toward a
full-fledged national conflagration.
He dissolved two business councils Wednesday after
the CEO members began quitting, damaging his central campaign promise to
be a business-savvy chief executive in the Oval Office.
And the White House said Thursday that it was abandoning plans to form an infrastructure advisory council.
Two major charities, the Cleveland Clinic and the
American Cancer Society, announced they are canceling fundraisers
scheduled for Trump's resort in Palm Beach, Florida, amid the continuing
backlash over Trump's remarks.
And the CEO of 21st Century Fox, James Murdoch, has
denounced racism and terrorists while expressing concern over Trump's
statements.
Murdoch writes that the event in Charlottesville and
Trump's response is a concern for all people. "I can't believe I have to
write this: standing up to Nazis is essential; there are no good Nazis.
Or Klansmen, or terrorists."
Murdoch is the son of the company's co-executive chairman, Rupert Murdoch, a Trump confidant.
Meanwhile, rumblings of discontent from Trump's staff
grew so loud that the White House had to release a statement saying
that Trump's chief economic adviser wasn't quitting. And the president
remained on the receiving end of bipartisan criticism for his handling
of the aftermath of the Charlottesville clashes.
On Thursday, he hit back hard — against Republicans.
He accused "publicity-seeking" Sen. Lindsey Graham of
South Carolina of falsely stating Trump's position on the
demonstrators. He called Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake "toxic" and praised
Flake's potential primary election opponent.
Graham said Wednesday that Trump "took a step
backward by again suggesting there is moral equivalency" between the
marching white supremacists and the people who had been demonstrating
against them. Flake has been increasingly critical of Trump in recent
weeks.
Pressured by advisers, the president had softened his
words on the dispute Monday, two days after he had enraged many by
declining to single out the white supremacists and neo-Nazis whose
demonstration against the removal of a Robert E. Lee statute had led to
violence and the death of a counter-protester in Charlottesville.
He returned to his combative stance Tuesday —
insisting anew during an unexpected and contentious news conference at
Trump Tower that "both sides" were to blame.
Aides watching from the sidelines reacted with dismay
and disbelief and privately told colleagues they were upset by the
president's remarks, though not upset enough for anyone to resign.
The resignation speculation around Gary Cohn, head of
the National Economic Council and a Jew, had grown so intense by
Thursday that the White House released a statement saying reports that
Cohn was stepping down were "100 percent false."
But not all of Trump's aides were unhappy with his performance.
Adviser Steve Bannon's job security in the White
House has become tenuous — Trump offered only a "we'll see" on Tuesday
when asked if his chief strategist would remain in his post — but Bannon
has been telling allies that the president's news conference would
electrify the GOP base.
And in a pair of interviews Wednesday, Bannon cheered
on the president's nationalist tendencies and suggested that a fight
over Confederate monuments was a political fight he welcomes.
"The race-identity politics of the left wants to say
it's all racist," Bannon told The New York Times.
"Just give me more.
Tear down more statues. Say the revolution is coming. I can't get enough
of it."
