President Trump Addresses Violence in Charlottesville
President Trump delivered a statement after a weekend of violent protests in Charlottesville, Va.
Photo by Tom Brenner/The New York Times.
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WASHINGTON
— President Donald Trump bowed to overwhelming pressure that he
personally condemn white supremacists who incited bloody demonstrations
in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend — labeling their racists views
“evil” after two days of equivocal statements.
“Racism
is evil,” Mr. Trump said. “And those who cause violence in its name are
criminals and thugs, including the K.K.K., neo-Nazis, white
supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we
hold dear as Americans.”
Several
of the president’s top advisers, including his new Chief of Staff John
F. Kelly, pressed Mr. Trump to issue a more forceful rebuke after his
comment on Saturday that the violence in Charlottesville was initiated
by “many sides,” prompting nearly universal criticism.
That
pressure reached boiling point early Monday after the president
attacked the head of Merck pharmaceuticals, who is black, for quitting
an advisory board over his failure to call out white nationalists.
Merck’s chief executive, Kenneth C. Frazier, resigned from the president’s American Manufacturing Council
on Monday, saying he objected to the president’s statement on Saturday
blaming violence that left one woman dead on “many sides.”
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“America’s
leaders must honor our fundamental views by clearly rejecting
expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to
the American ideal that all people are created equal,” Mr. Frazier said in a tweet announcing he was stepping down from the panel. Mr. Frazier is one of just a handful of black chief executives of a Fortune 500 company.
Less
than hour later, Mr. Trump, responded on social media as he departed
his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., for a day trip back to Washington.
Mr.
Trump’s shot at one of the country’s best-known black executives
prompted an immediate outpouring of support for Mr. Frazier from major
figures in business, media and politics. “Thanks @Merck
Ken Frazier for strong leadership to stand up for the moral values that
made this country what it is,” Paul Polman, the chief executive of
Unilever, wrote on Twitter.
It’s
not unusual for Mr. Trump to attack, via Twitter, any public figure who
ridicules, criticizes or even mildly questions his actions. But his
decision to take on Mr. Frazier, a self-made multimillionaire who rose
from a modest childhood in Philadelphia to attend Harvard Law School,
was extraordinary given the wide-ranging criticism he has faced from
both parties for not forcefully denouncing the neo-Nazis and Klan
sympathizers who rampaged in Charlottesville.
Mr.
Frazier appeared next to Mr. Trump at the White House just last month
to announce an agreement among drug makers that would create 1,000 jobs.
He
is only the second African-American executive to lead a major
pharmaceutical firm, and rose prominence as Merck’s general counsel,
when he successfully defended the company against class-action lawsuits
stemming from complications involving the anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx.
“It
took Trump 54 minutes to condemn Merck CEO Ken Frazier, but after
several days he still has not condemned murdering white supremacists,”
Keith Boykin, a former aide to President Bill Clinton who comments on
politics and race for CNN, wrote in a Tweet.
Mr.
Frazier’s exit from the business council marks a mini-exodus of
business leaders, resulting from the president’s stances on social
issues and the environment. His recent decision to leave the Paris
climate accord prompted Elon Musk of Tesla to resign, as did the chief
executive of Disney, Bob Iger, and Lloyd Blankfein, the chief executive
of Goldman Sachs.
Correction: August 14, 2017
An earlier version of this article misquoted part of President Trump’s statement on the violence in Charlottesville, Va. He blamed “many sides,” not “all sides,” for the violence that left one woman dead.
An earlier version of this article misquoted part of President Trump’s statement on the violence in Charlottesville, Va. He blamed “many sides,” not “all sides,” for the violence that left one woman dead.
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