RACISM/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump defended the ‘beautiful’ statues commemorating Confederate leaders and lamented efforts to remove them, weighing in on an issue central to the weekend’s deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va…
The debate over the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, a top commander of Confederate forces in the Civil War, sparked protests last week in Charlottesville from white nationalists and neo-Nazis. One man with a history of supporting white supremacists allegedly drove a car into a crowd of counterprotesters on Saturday, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
The president waited two days to condemn the white supremacist groups, making remarks Monday singling out the Ku Klux Klan and other groups for blame.
Mr. Trump spoke again about the violence in a combative news conference Tuesday in which he said that ‘both sides’ were at fault. The news conference has caused divisions within his administration, including among his top advisers, and led to immediate rebukes from congressional leaders, including fellow Republicans.”
-Michael C. Bender and Jon Kamp, “Trump Defends Confederate Statues in Wake of Charlottesville Violence,” The Wall Street Journal online, Aug. 17, 2017 06:06pm