Britany Riley  //  8/20/17  //  Topic Update

After his widely criticized statement condemning violence “on many sides” in Charlottesville, President Trump issued a new statement today, saying “racism is evil” (WSJ, NYT).

• The full text of his statement can be found here.
• Vice President Pence condemned white supremacist groups on Sunday night (WSJ).
• Vice President Pence also attempted to defend President Trump’s initial response condemning “many sides” (Politico).
• Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that the violence met the definition of domestic terrorism (WaPo, NYT).
• Multiple Republican congress members criticized the President’s early responses (Politico).
• Kenneth Frazier, CEO of Merck, resigned from the president’s manufacturing council in protest over President Trump’s slow reaction to the violence in Charlottesville on Saturday (Politico, WSJ, WaPo).
• William Antholis, writing for Lawfare, describes both the Charlottesville and Washington D.C. atmosphere. 

Multiple groups released statements condemning the events in Charlottesville.

• The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund’s statement is here.
• Lambda Legal’s statement is here.
• The Human Rights Campaign’s statement is here.
• Former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush released a joint statement on Charlottesville, which you can read here. 
• Members of the Joint Chiefs also spoke out against the events in Charlottesville (The Hill).  

President Trump then reverted to his earlier statement on Charlottesville, saying “both sides” are to blame for the violence (NYT, CNN).

• You can read a statement of President Trump’s comments here. 
• The President’s response suggests he is unwilling to honor core principles of equality under law, argues Bob Bauer at Lawfare.
• More CEOs have resigned from Trump’s manufacturing council in protest of President Trump’s response to Charlottesville (WSJ).
• President Trump has criticized the CEOs who have resigned from the council as “grandstanders” (Los Angeles Times). 
• Commentators continue to speculate what President Trump meant by his “many sides” remark (NYT).
• David Duke thanked President Trump blaming the violence in Charlottesville on the “alt-left” (The Hill).

Fallout from the President's remarks on Charlottesville continued on Wednesday, with President Trump disbanding multiple advisory councils after CEOs continued to defect (NYT). 

On Thursday, President Trump defended “beautiful” Confederate statutes from the threat of removal, lamenting a loss of “history and culture” (NYT, WaPo).

• Michael Dorf responds to President Trump’s comments equating Confederate leaders to slave-owning Founding Fathers (Take Care).

Attorney General Sessions is considering pursuing the Charlottesville attack as a hate crime (WaPo). 

Charlottesville shows that the First Amendment can be a double-edged sword, writes Josh Blackman on LawFare. 

Killings of black men by whites are more likely to be ruled “justifiable” than other combinations, a disparity that has persisted for decades, report Daniel Lathrop and Anna Flagg at The Marshall Project. 

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