The Republican Party’s collective response to Donald Trump’s handling of the Charlottesville race riots turned uglier on Friday.
Mitt Romney, the failed 2012 GOP presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor whom Trump has bashed relentlessly for more than two years, lashed out against him on Facebook for what he said was a hamfisted message during Tuesday’s press conference – and demanded a full-throated apology from the president.
Trump on Monday firmly condemned neo-Nazis and white supremacists whose violence over the weekend in Virginia led to three deaths. But a day later he equivocated, saying ‘both sides’ of the clashes there deserved blame, including leftist counter-protesters.
The resulting uproar has seen Trump isolated from others in his party and led to mass resignations from his business advisory boards and a major arts and humanities council.
Former 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney blasted Donald Trump on Friday and demanded a public apology for his post-Charlottesville comments on Tuesday
Trump condemned white supremacists on Monday but said a day later that leftist counter-protesters in Virginia shared some of the blame for violence that led to three deaths
Romney wrote on Facebook that Trump hasn’t been nearly unequivocal enough in his criticism of neo-Nazis
‘The president must take remedial action in the extreme,’ Romney wrote on Friday. ‘He should address the American people, acknowledge that he was wrong, apologize. State forcefully and unequivocally that racists are 100% to blame for the murder and violence in Charlottesville.’
‘Testify that there is no conceivable comparison or moral equivalency between the Nazis–who brutally murdered millions of Jews and who hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives to defeat–and the counter-protestors who were outraged to see fools parading the Nazi flag, Nazi armband and Nazi salute.
‘And once and for all, he must definitively repudiate the support of David Duke and his ilk and call for every American to banish racists and haters from any and every association.’
Public comments on the Facebook post ran nearly universally against Romney on Friday, with Trump supporters writing they were ‘disapppointed’ and that they had ‘lost all respect’ for him.
Trump’s remoteness from the rest of the GOP has become so severe that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, a longtime ally of the president’s, sounded a loud alarm Friday morning.
‘I think he’s in a position right now where he’s much more isolated than he realizes,’ Gingrich said in a Fox News Channel interview.
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only black Republican in the Senate, warned Thursday that Trump’s moral authority is compromised
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (left) backed up Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake (right) a day after Trump blasted Flake as ‘toxic’
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Friday on Fox News that Trump is ‘more isolated than he thinks’ as one Republican after another refuses to stand with him
On [Capitol] Hill he has far more people willing to sit to one side and not help him right now, and I think that he needs to recognize that he’s taken a good first step with bringing in General Kelly, but he needs to think about what has not worked.’
‘You don’t get down to 35 percent approval and have people in your own party shooting at you and conclude that everything’s going fine,’ Gingrich said.
One of Trump’s newest detractors, South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott, said in a Thursday interview with VICE that the president’s comments show that his ‘moral authority is compromised.’
‘I’m not going to defend the indefensible,’ said Scott, the only black Republican in the U.S. Senate.
Trump’s comments on Monday ‘were strong,’ he added. ‘His comments on Tuesday started erasing the comments that were strong.’
‘What we want to see from our president is clarity and moral authority. And that moral authority is compromised when Tuesday happened. There’s no question about that.’
Scott said he hasn’t yet abandoned hope of working with Trump on areas of legislation where they agree. But ‘the president’s coattails are shorter’ than before, he added, signaling political difficulty in aligning with the White House on practically anything.
Trump clobbered Sen. Flake Thursday on Twitter and hinted at endorsing his likely GOP primary opponent next year
Sen. McConnell came to Flake’s rescue one day later, praising him as ‘excellent’ and ‘tireless’
On Thursday another GOP senator, Bob Corker of Tennessee, warned that Trump has not displayed the ‘stability’ or ‘competence’ needed to succeed in the Oval Office.
He also said Trump ‘recently has not demonstrated that he understands the character of this nation.’
And on Friday morning the Republican leader of the Senate, Kentuckian Mitch McConnell, backed up colleague Jeff Flake of Arizona – whom Trump had labeled as ‘toxic’ a day before.
‘Jeff Flake is an excellent Senator and a tireless advocate for Arizona and our nation. He has my full support,’ McConnell tweeted.
Trump is expected to endorse a more conservative primary challenger to Flake next week when he holds a rally in Phoenix.
‘Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is running against Flake Jeff Flake, who is WEAK on borders, crime and a non-factor in Senate. He’s toxic!’ Trump tweeted.
Flake took Monday to bash Trump on immigration, calling for changes to the president’s plan that would severely limit legal immigration.
Writing in a New York Times op-ed, Flake agreed with Trump that ‘it is right to give priority, through a point system or otherwise, to those who have skills and abilities unique to the new economy.’
But he also insisted that low-skill laborers should be welcomed equally.
‘[T]here must always be a place in America for those whose only initial credentials are a strong back and an eagerness to use it,’ Flake wrote.