GOP Lawmakers Hit Trump For Again Blaming Both Sides In Charlottesville

FILE - In this Jan. 11, 2017, file photo, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., questions Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson during Tillerson's confirmation hearing before the committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. Rub... FILE - In this Jan. 11, 2017, file photo, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., questions Secretary of State-designate Rex Tillerson during Tillerson's confirmation hearing before the committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. Rubio's moment of truth is at hand as a Senate committee prepares to vote on Tillerson. Rubio tangled with Tillerson over Russia at his nomination hearing, but faces a tough call over whether to defy his new president and onetime GOP primary foe. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File) MORE LESS
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After backsliding at a Tuesday afternoon press conference where he railed against what he called the “alt-left” and said that both “sides” held some blame for the violence in Charlottesville over the weekend, President Donald Trump faced criticism from a few Republican lawmakers.

A few GOP members of Congress directly called out Trump for pandering to white supremacists by refusing to place blame on them for the deadly attack in Charlottesville. And some Republicans reiterated their condemnations of white nationalists without calling out Trump by name.

Directly criticizing the President

After Trump’s off-the-rails press conference, some Republicans explicitly criticized him for failing yet again to condemn white nationalists.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) offered a tweetstorm bashing Trump and denouncing white supremacists.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and several other Republicans also directly called out the President on Twitter.

Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) told CNN that Trump should “apologize” for his comments at the press conference. Hurd said that “racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism of any form is unacceptable” and that the “leader of the free world should be unambiguous about that.”

At a town hall in Colorado, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) said that Trump was “wrong” to go back on what he said on Monday when he explicitly condemned white nationalists, the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) issued a statement criticizing Trump.

“As I said this weekend, white supremacy, bigotry and racism have absolutely no place in out society, and no one — especially the President of the United States — should ever tolerate it. We must all come together as a country and denounce this hatred to the fullest extent,” he said.

Condemned white nationalists

Other Republicans distanced themselves from Trump’s press conference by reiterating their condemnations for white nationalists and hate groups like the KKK, but without explicitly naming Trump.

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