President Trump on Monday answered two days of bipartisan furor over his initial response to deadly protests in Charlottesville, Va., with a statement for the first time explicitly blaming white supremacists for the “racist violence” over the weekend. The president’s statement was a hastily arranged do-over that implicitly acknowledged the need to stanch the self-inflicted damage his first reaction had caused him and his administration. After segueing to roughly two minutes of remarks denouncing the hate groups, Trump pivoted and left, ignoring reporters’ shouted questions as he had Saturday, including several asking whether he regretted his delay in specifically blaming the racists. Before his public statement, Trump met privately with Atty. On social media, many critics noted the contrast between Trump’s quick condemnation of Frazier and his failure — to that point — to denounce racist groups by name.

Source: Los Angeles Times August 14, 2017 19:21 UTC