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.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing