Sen. Lindsey Graham called out President Trump on Wednesday, saying he “took a step backward” in his Tuesday statements.
Trump “took a step backward by again suggesting there is moral equivalency between the white supremacist neo-Nazis and KKK members who attended the Charlottesville rally,” the South Carolina Republican said in a strongly-worded statement.
Graham — who ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nominee last year — called on him to “try to bring us together as a nation” following the Charlottesville violence.
On Saturday, a white supremacist drove his car into a group of counterprotesters on Saturday in Charlottesville, Va., killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
“Your words are dividing Americans, not healing them,” Graham added.
Speaking from Trump Tower on Tuesday, Trump renewed his claim from the weekend that “both sides” shared blame for the Saturday violence.
“You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent, and nobody wants to say that,” Trump told reporters. “You had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit and they were very, very violent.”
Hours after the Saturday violence, Trump had said “many sides” were to blame — inviting bipartisan criticism that he wasn’t quick enough to denounce the white supremacists and Neo-Nazis that had helped to organize Saturday’s “Unite the Right” rally.
Then on Monday from the White House, the president denounced the groups: “Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists.”
