Facing sharp criticism, Trump calls out racists

President Trump on Monday answered two days of bipartisan furor over his initial response to deadly protests in Charlottesville, Va., with a statement for the first time explicitly blaming white supremacists for the “racist violence” over the weekend. Its statement said, “America’s leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy.” Frazier said he felt “a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.” Trump responded on Twitter less than an hour after Merck posted Frazier’s statement: “Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!” He attacked Merck a second time on Twitter on Monday evening, citing it for sending jobs overseas and high prices. Why not for white supremacists?” In New York, where Trump planned to spend the night in his first stay in Trump Tower as president, protesters converged for blocks around the high-rise, shouting “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA.” House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said in a statement, “It shouldn’t take the president of the United States two days to summon the basic decency to condemn murder and violence by Nazis and white supremacists.” Pelosi, like many other Democrats, called on Trump to fire his embattled chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who has touted himself as a promoter of the “alt-right” movement, a term often used to describe white nationalists. The Senate’s only African American Republican, Tim Scott of South Carolina, said in a statement that the president’s latest comments were “clear and specific” but “would have been more impactful on Saturday.” Ignoring such reactions, Trump in a tweet on Monday complained that the news media weren’t giving him credit: “Made additional remarks on Charlottesville and realize once again that the #Fake News Media will never be satisfied … truly bad people!” Christopher Ruddy, a longtime Trump friend, said he believes the president was caught off guard by the controversy over his initial remarks.