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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Top Republicans pile pressure on Trump over Virginia response

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WASHINGTON: Two more top Republican leaders rebuked US President Donald Trump over his reaction to the deadly weekend violence that erupted between white supremacist groups and counter-demonstrators. Senator Lindsey Graham called on Trump to “fix” his remarks, while Senator Bob Corker said he feared the nation would be imperilled unless Trump changed.


Corker’s criticism of Trump was among the harshest yet. He said Trump had “not yet been able to demonstrate the stability, nor some of the competence, that he needs to demonstrate in order for him to be successful.”


Corker spoke at an event in his home state of Tennessee, afterward telling reporters Trump “has not demonstrated that he understands the character of this nation” and unless he can do that “our nation is going to go through great peril.”


Graham noted that Trump had been praised by the leaders of white supremacist groups for saying that “both sides” were to blame for the violence at the rally staged by neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and other right-wing groups on Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia.


“For the sake of our nation — as our president — please fix this. History is watching us all,” Graham told reporters.


Graham’s statement came after Trump attacked Graham on Twitter, saying he told a “disgusting lie” by saying he said there was moral equivalency between the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists and counter-demonstrators, including Heather Heyer, who was killed in a car-ramming allegedly carried out by a Nazi sympathiser.


Trump said: “You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. I’ll say it right now.”


White supremacists groups were demonstrating in Charlottesville to oppose the city council’s decision to remove a statue of Robert E Lee, the general who led the southern Confederate forces in the US civil war.


The city council voted to remove the statue, saying it represents racism because of the slavery that was practised in the South.


But many people support leaving the statue in place, arguing that it is historically significant and because they say it represents Lee’s individual achievements, not support for slavery, the key issue that divided the states before the war.


Trump on Thursday expressed sadness over cities and towns across the South tearing down statues and monuments to civil war soldiers, saying US history was “being ripped apart.” “You can’t change history, but you can learn from it,” Trump added on Twitter. “Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson - who’s next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish!”


Trump made the same argument during a news conference on Tuesday, referring to Jackson, another general who fought for the losing side in the war, and to the first and third presidents of the country, noting that they were slave owners.


During the combative press conference Trump blasted reporters for what he said was their one-sided portrayal of the demonstration in Charlottesville. Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who has been accused of links to white nationalists, earlier described those who rallied in Virginia as “clowns” in a rare interview.


“Ethno-nationalism — it’s losers. It’s a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it,” he told The American Prospect magazine.


Bannon’s political future has been the subject of much speculation in Washington in recent weeks, with reports saying he had fallen out of favour with some in the White House and that his job as Trump’s chief strategist was in jeopardy. — dpa


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