President Donald Trump directly condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis in a statement from the White House Monday afternoon.
"Racism is evil — and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans," Trump said in response to the attacks in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend.
"Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America," Trump said.
Democrats and Republicans have excoriated Trump for his unwillingness to condemn the groups behind the violent protests that left one woman dead who was allegedly hit by a car driven by a man with ties to white supremacy groups.
After blaming the violence "on many sides" Saturday, Trump stayed silent for close to 48 hours. letting his trademark bluntness and campaign pledges to call terrorism what it is succumb to silence and vagueness.
Trump's comments came as he took a short break from his 17-day long working vacation in New York and New Jersey with a trip to the White House. He initially returned to Washington to meet with top administration officials and sign a presidential memorandum directing his US Trade Representative to determine whether an investigation is needed into China's laws and policies related to trade and intellectual property.
This was the White House's latest attempt to clarify Trump's comments from Saturday.
An unnamed White House official said Sunday that "of course" the President condemns "white supremacists, KKK, neo-nazi and all extremist groups," but declined to explain why the President wasn't saying it himself.
Trump also remained mum on Twitter, declining to send a single tweet of his own Sunday, only the fourth in his 207 days as president that Trump has gone a full day without tweeting a message of his own.
Trump did, however, use Twitter on Monday to push his political message and settle a score: He slammed Ken Frazier, the CEO of Merck Pharma, who resigned from Trump's manufacturing council over his failure to condemn white supremacists.
"Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES," Trump tweeted.
Frazier, one of the nation's top African-American CEOs, has spent considerable time at the White House with Trump before he resigned his position.
First Published August 14, 2017, 4:54 p.m.
