Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee sent a letter Wednesday to the Republican National Committee calling on the group to do more to counter President Trump’s rhetoric concerning white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Va.
“The leader of your Republican Party, President Trump, responded first with silence, then with begrudging condemnation, and most recently with words that embolden white supremacy,” Perez said in a letter sent to RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel, according to USA Today.
The letter was sent after Trump’s impromptu news conference at Trump Tower on Tuesday, where he doubled back to his initial statement on Charlottesville in which he refuses to pick a side. Trump has faced criticism from Republicans and Democrats for his remarks regarding the violence, where he failed to rebuke white supremacist groups and neo-Nazis. On Monday he did condemn these groups by name, going further than his first statement Saturday, but on Tuesday he said “fine people” exist on both sides.
“He tore open the scars of history while creating a dangerous false equivalency between those upholding racism and those fighting to defeat it,” said Perez in the letter.
“There is no denying that these white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan have made their home in this president’s Republican Party. As chairwoman, you bear a responsibility not just to reject hateful ideology generally, but to hold accountable the individuals in your party who have allowed that ideology to flourish,” Perez added.
He closed by saying McDaniel had a responsibility to stop Trump.
McDaniel made an appearance Wednesday morning on ABC’s “Good Morning America” where she said “the blame lays squarely on the KKK and white supremacists,” countering Trump’s remarks that blame exists on both sides of the aisle.
