By Ian Simpson
CHARLOTTESVILLE,
Va. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's remarks condemning violence at
a white nationalist rally were meant to include the Ku Klux Klan and
neo-Nazi groups, the White House insisted on Sunday, a day after he was
criticized across the political spectrum for not explicitly denouncing
white supremacists.
U.S.
authorities opened an investigation of the deadly violence in Virginia,
which put renewed pressure on the Trump administration to take an
unequivocal stand against right-wing extremists occupying a steadfast
segment of the Republican president's political base.
A
32-year-old woman was killed and 19 were people injured, five
critically, on Saturday when a man plowed a car into a crowd of people
protesting the white nationalist rally in the Southern college town of
Charlottesville. Another 15 people were injured in bloody street brawls
between white nationalists and counter-demonstrators who fought each
other with fists, rocks and pepper spray.
Two Virginia state police officers died in the crash of their helicopter after assisting in efforts to quell the unrest.
James
Alex Fields Jr., 20, a white Ohio man described by a former high school
teacher as having been "infatuated" with Nazi ideology as a teenager,
was due to be appear in court on murder and other charges stemming from
the deadly car crash.
Democrats
and Republicans criticized Trump for waiting too long to address the
violence, and for failing when he did speak out to explicitly condemn
the white-supremacist marchers who ignited the melee.
On
Sunday, however, the White House added: "The president said very
strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of
violence, bigotry, and hatred, and of course that includes white
supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi, and all extremist groups. He called for
national unity and bringing all Americans together."
The
statement was emailed to reporters covering Trump at his golf resort in
New Jersey and attributed to an unidentified "White House
spokesperson."
On
Saturday, Trump declined to single out any political ideology by name
as being involved in Charlottesville. "We condemn, in the strongest
possible terms, this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence
on many sides," he said.
On
Sunday TV shows Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer, a Democrat, praised
the police response as adequate, citing the presence of nearly 1,000 law
enforcement personnel at the scene. Signer blamed Trump for the
violence, starting with the billionaire businessman's 2016 run for the
White House.
"Look
at the campaign he ran, Signer said on CNN's State of the Nation."
"There is two words that need to be said over and over again - domestic
terrorism and white supremacy. That is exactly what we saw on display
this weekend."
SOLIDARITY WITH CHARLOTTESVILLE
Memorial
vigils and other events showing solidarity with Charlottesville's
victims were planned across the country on Sunday to "honor all those
under attack by congregating against hate," according to a loose
coalition of civil society groups said in postings on social media.
Virginia
police have not yet provided a motive for the man accused of ramming
his car into the crowd, but U.S. prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation have opened a civil rights investigation, an FBI field
office said.
Derek
Weimer, a history teacher at Fields' high school, told Cincinnati
television station WCPO-TV that he remembered Fields harboring "some
very radical views on race" as a student and was "very infatuated with
the Nazis, with Adolf Hitler."
"I
developed a good rapport with him and I used that rapport to constantly
try to steer him away from those beliefs," Weimer recounted.
Fields
is being held on suspicion of second-degree murder, three counts of
malicious wounding and a single count of leaving the scene of a fatal
accident, authorities said.
The cause of the police helicopter crash was also under federal investigation.
REPUBLICAN SENATORS CRITICIZE RESPONSE
On
Sunday morning, before the White House statement, Ivanka Trump, the
president's daughter and White House adviser, appealed on Twitter for
Americans to "be one country UNITED. #Charlottesville." She also posted:
"There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacy and
neo-Nazis."
Also
before the statement, U.S. Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado, who chairs
the Republican Party's Senate election effort, called on the president
to condemn "white supremacists" and to use that term. He was one of
several Republican senators who squarely criticized Trump on Twitter on
Saturday.
"Calling
out people for their acts of evil - let's do it today - white
nationalist, white supremacist," Gardner said on CNN's "State of the
Union" program on Sunday. "We will not stand for their hate."
An
organizer of Saturday's "Unite the Right" rally, which was staged to
protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate army commander
General Robert E. Lee from a park, said supporters of the event would
not back down. The rally stemmed from a long debate over various public
memorials and symbols honoring the pro-slavery Confederacy of the U.S.
Civil War, considered an affront by African-Americans.
Organizer
Jason Kessler, identified by civil rights groups as a white nationalist
blogger, attempted to hold a press conference outside city hall in
Charlottesville on Sunday, but was quickly shouted down by
counter-protesters. They then approached Kessler, who was whisked away
by state police.
Virginia
Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, who had declared an emergency
seeking to curb the unrest as it began on Saturday, held a news
conference afterward calling for the white nationalists "to go home."
"There is no place for you here," he said. "There is no place for you in America."
(Additional
reporting by Jeff Mason, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Lucia Mutikani in
Washington, James Oliphant in New Jersey, Bernie Woodall in Fort
Lauderdale, Fla. and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Writing by Grant
McCool and Steve Gorman; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Mary Milliken)
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