Mick Mulvaney insists on Fox News that Trump is 'not a white supremacist'

Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday that people trying to link President Trump's rhetoric to terrorist attacks like the New Zealand mosque shootings "speaks to a politicization of everything that I think is undermining sort of the institutions that we have in the country today."

White nationalism and anti-Muslim bigotry are two issues facing the United States, Wallace said, and he asked Mulvaney why Trump doesn't deliver a speech condemning such hatred. "We've seen the president stand up for religious liberties," Mulvaney responded. "The president is not a white supremacist. I'm not sure how many times we have to say that."

The attack in New Zealand was "a terrible, evil, tragic act," Mulvaney said, and people need to "figure out why those things are becoming more prevalent in the world. Is it Donald Trump? Absolutely not. Is there something else happening in our culture where people think, 'I know, I think today I'm going to go on TV and livestream me murdering other people.' That is what we should be talking about." Watch the video below. Catherine Garcia

The Week

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