It was a stunning moment. On Sunday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson suggested that the president of the United States does not speak for American values. After deflecting questions from Fox News’ Chris Wallace about President Donald Trump’s failure to condemn white supremacist groups who incited deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, by saying that he and the State Department “represent America’s values,” Tillerson said that “the president speaks for himself.”Tillerson’s statement caps a tumultuous two weeks in which Trump demonstrated that he has abandoned essential duties of the office, failing to provide basic, measured responses to violence and natural disasters. Throughout last week, he continued to defend his widely condemned response to the violence in Charlottesville — in which he delayed and then backtracked on a denunciation of white nationalist, KKK and neo-Nazi groups — including during a campaign-style rally in Phoenix.

Source: Huffington Post August 27, 2017 21:33 UTC