The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People cheered Steve Bannon’s exit from the White House on Friday and called on President Trump to sever ties with more top officials who “share Steve Bannon’s poisonous beliefs”: Sebastian Gorka and Stephen Miller.
“The NAACP is glad to see Steve Bannon out of the White House,” said Derrick Johnson, interim president and CEO of the NAACP. “Ousting one key staffer, however, can’t erase the words used by President Trump this week in defense of domestic terrorists, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists.”
The statement is referring to the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Va., where neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups clashed with counter-protesters. A car plowed into a group of counter-protesters leaving one dead and more than a dozen more injured.
The NAACP blames Trump for providing “permission for these hate groups to exist.”
“These groups are not rallying for peace, or for the preservation of Confederate memorabilia,” Johnson said. “They exist purely to foment hatred and violence. And they march with the president’s blessing.” The NAACP called on Trump to urge these groups to stop their “senseless rallies and killings and unlawful demonstrations.”
The heads of four minority caucuses earlier this week called on Trump to fire Bannon, Gorka, and Miller after the violent white nationalist groups’ rally in Charlottesville. They accused the trio of being supporters of white nationalism.
The NAACP echoed that sentiment, calling on Trump to fire Gorka, his deputy assistant, and Miller, a senior policy adviser.
“President Trump needs to send a clear message to our great country: That his administration disavows bigotry in all of its forms, and that racist ideologies simply will not be tolerated,” Johnson concluded.
