It was inevitable that President Trump would face more questions about last weekend's violent "Unite the Right" march in Charlottesville, Virginia, and his belated condemnation on Monday of the neo-Nazi, white supremacists, and KKK members who led it. But "it did not seem inevitable, says Phillip Bump at The Washington Post, "that Trump's responses to questions about those protests would cement as correct the general interpretation of his first comments on the matter: He's sympathetic to the goals of the men who marched Saturday night carrying Confederate and Nazi flags — and even to the 'peaceful' torchlight protest on Friday in which marchers chanted anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans."
That was certainly the interpretation "alt-right" and white nationalist leaders took away from Trump's remarks at his press conference on Tuesday afternoon at Trump Tower. But it was also essentially what Trump's staff thought, Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman report at The New York Times:
No word in the Trump lexicon is as tread-worn as "unprecedented." But members of the president's staff, stunned and disheartened, said they never expected to hear such a voluble articulation of opinions that the president had long expressed in private. ... No sooner had he delivered the Monday statement than he began railing privately to his staff about the news media. He fumed to aides about how unfairly he was being treated, and expressed sympathy with nonviolent protesters who he said were defending their "heritage," according to a West Wing official. [The New York Times]
Trump had been pressed to unequivocally condemn neo-Nazis and white supremacists on Monday by his new chief of staff, John Kelly, and daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner urged him to moderate his stance, Thrush and Haberman report, though "as with so many other critical moments in Mr. Trump's presidency, the two were on vacation, this time in Vermont." Kelly was not on vacation, and if you want to know what it was like for Trump's "stunned and disheartened" staff to hear Trump's remarks Tuesday, NBC News has a close-up of Kelly.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
You can read more about Trump's decision to go lay it all out there at The New York Times.
-
August 10 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday's political cartoons include a global plastics problem, GOP enthusiasm over tariffs, and more
-
5 thin-skinned cartoons about shooting the messengerCartoons Artists take on unfavorable weather, a look in the mirror, and more
-
Is Trump's new peacemaking model working in DR Congo?Talking Point Truce brokered by the US president in June is holding, but foundations of a long-term peace have let to be laid
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monumentsSpeed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seatspeed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
-
ICE scraps age limits amid hiring pushSpeed Read Anyone 18 or older can now apply to be an ICE agent
-
Trump's global tariffs take effect, with new additionsSpeed Read Tariffs on more than 90 US trading partners went into effect, escalating the global trade war
-
House committee subpoenas Epstein filesSpeed Read The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena to the Justice Department for its Jeffrey Epstein files with an Aug. 19 deadline
-
India rejects Trump threat over Russian oilSpeed Read The president said he would raise tariffs on India for buying and selling Russian oil
-
NY's Hochul vows response to Texas gerrymanderSpeed Read Gov. Kathy Hochul has promised to play ball with redistricting that favors the Democrats
-
Texas Democrats exit state to block redistricting voteSpeed Read More than 51 legislators fled the state in protest of the GOP's plan to redraw congressional districts
