White House Acts to Stem Fallout From Trump’s First Charlottesville Remarks
Mr. Bossert praised the statement the president made on Saturday — which denounced the “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides” — saying
that Mr. Trump had appropriately criticized an event that “turned into an unacceptable level of violence at all levels.”
“This isn’t about President Trump — this is about a level of violence and hatred
that could not be tolerated in this country,” Mr. Bossert told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
This racial intolerance and racial bigotry cannot be condoned.”
Mr. Tapper responded by citing a white nationalist website
that described Mr. Trump’s remarks as “really, really good.” He then asked Mr. Bossert: “Are you at least willing to concede that the president was not clear enough in condemning white supremacy?”
Mr. Bossert replied that Mr. Trump “didn’t dignify the names of these groups of people, but rather addressed the fundamental issue.”
Mr. Trump consulted a broad range of advisers before speaking on Saturday, most
of whom told him to sharply criticize the white nationalist protesters.
— The White House, under siege over President Trump’s equivocal response to this weekend’s bloody white nationalist rallies
in Charlottesville, Va., on Sunday condemned “white supremacists” for inciting the violence that led to one death.
The statement was sent “in response” to questions about Mr. Trump’s widely criticized remarks, in which he blamed the unrest “on many sides” while
speaking on Saturday before an event for military veterans at his golf resort in Bedminster, N. J., where the president is on vacation.