A day after President Trump defended the “very fine people” at a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville last weekend, the 41st and 43rd presidents of the United States put out a joint statement calling on all Americans to “reject racial bigotry, anti-Semitism and racism in all forms.”
Like many Republicans making similar condemnations this week, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush failed to mentioned Trump, the man who necessitated the statement. Among those who have called out the president by name is South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, one of the Senate’s leading Trump needlers.
“Through his statements yesterday, President Trump took a step backward by again suggesting there is moral equivalency between the white supremacist neo-Nazis and KKK members who attended the Charlottesville rally and people like Ms. Heyer. I, along with many others, do not endorse this moral equivalency,” Graham said in a statement Wednesday.
With their statement, the presidents Bush join fellow former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama in denouncing the white supremacists in Charlottesville. While Clinton tweeted a note on the importance of condemning hate, Obama kept it positive by quoting Nelson Mandela in what is now the most-liked tweet of all time.
