Monday on TBS’s “Conan,” Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) said President Donald Trump’s reaction to the violence in Charlottesville, VA last weekend was “horrible.”
Franken said, “President Trump, instead of condemning the white supremacists, just went out and said, ‘I condemn all violence from everybody, both sides.’ And I thought that was horrible. And it was very him. And just finally I guess today, he said something that it would have been fine if he said it two days ago about these white supremacists, ‘We can’t allow these people’—they were essentially being brown shirts, neo-Nazis. Unfortunately, I don’t know why on that first day he did not condemn what they did. And I fear that he thinks this is part of his base or something. But I don’t—anyway, just it was a tragic day. And we hope that that doesn’t happen again.”
He continued, “I was very pleased that a number of my Republican colleagues said that and it was pretty widespread condemnation. Just of his—I can’t explain why he said that, other than him thinking this is part of his base.”
He added, “It doesn’t have to be flowery eloquence. It can just be simply stated that we condemn all hatred and that’s not us, that’s not America. This isn’t who we are. You know George W. Bush after 9/11 made sure that he said Muslims aren’t—we don’t have a problem with Islam. So I have trouble with this president.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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