US President Donald Trump on Thursday decried the removal of monuments to the pro-slavery Civil War Confederacy, echoing white nationalists and drawing stinging rebukes from fellow Republicans.
Trump has alienated Republicans, corporate leaders and US allies, rattled markets and prompted speculation about possible White House resignations with his comments since the violence on Saturday last week in Charlottesville, Virginia, which came in the aftermath of a white nationalist protest against the removal of a Confederate statue.
“The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the ability or the competence that he needs to be successful,” said Republican Senator Bob Corker, who Trump had considered for the job of secretary of state, adding that Trump needed to make “radical changes.”
Trump on Thursday unleashed attacks on two Republican US senators, Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham, in a series of Twitter posts, raising fresh doubts about his ability to work with lawmakers in his own party to win passage of his legislative agenda.
He took aim at the removal or consideration for removal of Confederate statues and monuments in a long list of cities in California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Tennessee, Virginia, and Texas, as well as the capital.
“Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You can’t change history, but you can learn from it,” Trump said on Twitter.
“Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson — who’s next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish!” Trump said.
He was referring to two Confederate generals in the Civil War that ended in 1865 and two early US presidents George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who owned slaves, but whose legacies are overwhelmingly honored.
Trump also denied he had spoken of “moral equivalency” between white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members who clashed with anti-racism activists in Charlottesville.
Amid the controversy, the White House knocked down rumors that Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn might resign.
Trump on Wednesday announced the disbanding of two high-profile business advisory councils after the resignation of several corporate executives over his Charlottesville remarks, while on Thursday, a White House official said Trump had dropped plans for an advisory council on infrastructure.
The world-renowned Cleveland Clinic also canceled a Florida fundraiser planned for next year at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida resort, where it had held such events for seven straight years.
Clinic spokeswoman Eileen Sheil said it considered “a variety of factors” in deciding to cancel an event that typically generates US$1 million a year.
Twenty-First Century Fox chairman James Murdoch slammed Trump’s response to Charlottesville in an e-mail to friends and pledged to donate US$1 million to the Anti-Defamation League, the New York Times reported.
Murdoch wrote that Trump’s comments should “concern all of us as Americans and free people,” the Times said.
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