Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hinted on Sunday that he wasn’t impressed with President Trump’s response to the recent racial violence in Charlottesville, which left one young woman dead at the hands of a Nazi sympathizer.
‘The president speaks for himself, Chris,’ Tillerson said when asked by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace if the president’s response has made it harder push American values worldwide.
Wallace had brought up the ‘early warning’ the United States had received Wednesday from a United Nations committee, in which members expressed concern after seeing the overt signs of racism on display in Charlottesville at the ‘Unite the Right’ rally.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Sunday that the president ‘speaks for himself,’ when asked if President Trump’s response to Charlottesville has made it harder for the top diplomat to promote American values
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (left) sat down with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace (right) and discussed an early warning the United Nations put out about the U.S.’s over racism, which was on display in Charlottesville, Virginia
Rex Tillerson was the second high profile person in the political world to express frustration over President Trump’s (pictured) Charlottesville response on Sunday. Former Vice President Joe Biden did too
‘We are alarmed by the racist demonstrations, with overtly racist slogans, chants and salutes by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klus Klan, promoting white supremacy and inciting racial discrimination and hatred,’ the committee’s chair Anastasia Crickley said.
The early warning puts the U.S. alongside Burundi, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan and Nigeria, countries that also received U.N. rebukes.
Wallace asked Tillerson about the warning and about Trump’s most recent response to Charlottesville, which consisted of blaming the media for the coverage of the rallies.
‘The only people giving a platform to these hate groups is the media itself and the fake news,’ Trump had said in Phoenix on Tuesday night.
Wallace wanted to know if Trump was making it harder for Tillerson to tout American values, when foreign leaders were questioning the president’s own values.
‘Chris, we express America’s values from the State Department,’ Tillerson answered. ‘We represent the American people. We represent America’s values, our commitment to freedom, out commitment to equal treatment to people the world over.’
‘And that message has never changed,’ he added.
Wallace, however, pointed out that ‘when the president gets into the kind of controversy that it does and the U.N committee responds the way it does, it seems to say they begin to doubt our – whether we’re living those values.’
‘I don’t believe anyone doubts the American people’s values or the commitment of the American government or the government’s agencies to advancing those values and defending those values,’ Tillerson replied.
Wallace then asked, ‘And the president’s values?’
To which Tillerson replied that Trump spoke for himself.
Tillerson was the second prominent figure in politics to pan the president’s Charlottesville response on Sunday, with former Vice President Joe Biden penning an editorial for the Atlantic, lambasting Trump for ’embolden[ing] white supremacists.’
The secretary of state’s reaction, however, is more surprising as he’s a member of Trump’s cabinet, not a voice from the opposing political party.
When Wallace asked if Tillerson if he was separating himself from Trump’s comments, the former ExxonMobil chief executive didn’t say no.
‘I’ve spoken – I’ve made my own comments as to our values as well in a speech I gave to the State Department last week,’ Tillerson responded.