{"id":40654,"date":"2017-08-14T09:02:41","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T09:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=40654"},"modified":"2017-08-14T09:02:41","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T09:02:41","slug":"white-house-defends-trump-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/world-news\/white-house-defends-trump-response.html","title":{"rendered":"White House defends Trump response"},"content":{"rendered":"

White House defends Trump response<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

White House defends Trump response:- The White House has defended President Donald Trump’s reaction to deadly violence over a white supremacist rally in Virginia, amid criticism he did not explicitly condemn far-right groups.<\/span><\/p>\n

But a spokesman said his condemnation included white supremacists.<\/span><\/p>\n

A woman was killed on Saturday when a car rammed into a crowd protesting against the rally in Charlottesville.<\/span><\/p>\n

Separately, a rally organiser was chased away by protesters as he tried to give a press conference on Sunday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jason Kessler, who organised the controversial “Unite the Right” march, was heckled and booed as he blamed the police for not preventing the violence, which he also condemned.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nineteen people were injured in the car-ramming incident, and another 15 people were wounded in separate clashes related to the far-right march on Saturday afternoon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Protests and vigils in support of Charlottesville were held in many US cities on Sunday. In Seattle, police used pepper spray to stop anti-fascist protesters approaching a pro-Trump rally.<\/span><\/p>\n

How did Trump initially respond?<\/span><\/p>\n

Hours after the violence erupted, Mr Trump said he condemned “in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides”.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The hate and the division must stop right now,” he told reporters in New Jersey, where he is on a working holiday. “We have to come together as Americans with love for our nation.”<\/span><\/p>\n

But his comments did not explicitly condemn the white extremist groups involved in the rally, an omission that was strongly criticised by Republicans and Democrats alike.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many, including senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, echoed the sentiment of Colorado Senator Cory Gardner, who tweeted: “Mr President – we must call evil by its name. These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The president’s national security adviser, HR McMaster, went further by commenting: “Anytime that you commit an attack against people to incite fear, it meets the definition of terrorism.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr Trump’s daughter too also appeared to offer stronger condemnation than her father.<\/span><\/p>\n

The mayor of Charlottesville, Democrat Mike Signer, drew a link between the events and the rhetoric of Mr Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, saying that “these anti-Semites, racists, Aryans, neo-Nazis, KKK” had come out of the shadows after having “been given a key and a reason to come into the light”.<\/span><\/p>\n

In response to the criticism, the White House issued a statement on Sunday clarifying that Mr Trump’s condemnation had included white supremacists.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The president said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred. Of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups,” a spokesperson said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Should we be surprised by Trump’s response?<\/span><\/p>\n

Anthony Zurcher, BBC North America reporter<\/span><\/p>\n

Clues for how the president would react to such a situation were scattered across his presidential campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

In February 2016, Mr Trump initially declined to disavow support from the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke, the former Klan leader who became a Louisiana Republican politician.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Any candidate who cannot immediately condemn a hate group like the KKK does not represent the Republican Party, and will not unite it,” Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the first black Republican elected from a Southern state since 1881, said.<\/span><\/p>\n

After a week, Mr Trump gave a firm statement denouncing the KKK, but his initial hesitance would be an issue for the remainder of his presidential race.<\/span><\/p>\n

If, as Mr Trump’s critics suggest, his statements following the Charlottesville incident were yet another “dog whistle” to white supremacists, there’s evidence that the message was clearly heard.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Trump comments were good,” one poster on the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer wrote. “He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together.”<\/span><\/p>\n

How did the violence unfold?<\/span><\/p>\n

Hundreds of white nationalists converged for Saturday’s “Unite the Right” march, called to protest against the removal of a statue of a general who had fought for the pro-slavery Confederacy during the US Civil War.<\/span><\/p>\n

The far-right demonstrators, who included neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members, clashed violently with counter-protesters.<\/span><\/p>\n

A 32-year-old woman, Heather D Heyer, was later killed when a car was driven into a crowd of dispersing counter-protesters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ms Heyer’s mother paid tribute to her daughter, who was a civil rights activist and lawyer.<\/span><\/p>\n

“She always had a very strong sense of right and wrong, she always, even as a child, was very caught up in what she believed to be fair,” she told the Huffington Post.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I’m proud that what she was doing was peaceful, she wasn’t there fighting with people.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Twenty-year-old James Fields from Ohio, the alleged driver, is in detention on suspicion of second-degree murder and the FBI has opened a civil rights investigation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some observers say that Mr Trump’s election to the White House has re-energised the far right across the US.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organisation, says that “Trump’s run for office electrified the radical right, which saw in him a champion of the idea that America is fundamentally a white man’s country.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-us-canada-40919181<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t <\/div><\/div>\n\t\t