President Donald Trump has done an "incredible job" of calling out terrorism around the world, and now he needs to call out white supremacism and nationalism "evil, and let the country hear it," Sen. Cory Gardner, speaking Sunday after sharply criticizing the president's response to the violent events in Charlottesville, Virginia this weekend.
"This president has done so when people have driven trucks through crowds in Europe," the Colorado Republican told CNN "State of the Union" anchor Jake Tapper. "He's called it radical Islamic terrorism. He should use this opportunity today to say this is terrorism, domestic terrorism and white nationalism and it has to stop. I encourage the president to do so."
The White House has a "healing power," he continued, and that needs to be seen.
Trump is facing waves of criticism from members of both parties after he failed to forcefully denounce the white nationalists and neo-Nazis who held a rally that turned deadly Saturday. In a statement from his golf resort in New Jersey, where the president is spending his vacation, Trump called the violence an "egregious display of hatred, bigotry, violence — on many sides,” making it appear he was placing equal blame on both sides.
Tapper said that there are those who are saying Trump was hesitant to blame white nationalists for the violence because of their participation in his voters' base, but Gardner rejected that such people should be part of anyone's base.
"They are not a part of this country," said Gardner. "They are the part of hatred and bigotry and evil, and we need to stand up to that."
Trump needs to step up today and address the issue for what it is, Gardner insisted, as his daughter, Ivanka, has "called this white nationalism; the president needs to do so, as well."
The senator chairs the campaign arm of his party in the Senate, but when asked if he wants GOP candidates to denounce the supremacists, he said it's not a party issue.
"This is about anybody with any common sense, dignity for human life and the values that we hold as a country," he said. "this country has made great mistakes in the past that led to a civil war. We've overcome them and we apologized for them and we should continue to do everything we can in our power to never let them happen, again."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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