Sec of State Tillerson is Asked if he Represents Trump Values, He said No, Only His
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| Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” seemed to separate himself from the president on his equivocal response to the Charlottesville, Va., violence. |
Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, addressing President Trump’s blaming of “both sides” in the racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Va., declined to say on Sunday whether Mr. Trump’s response represented “American values.”
“The president speaks for himself,” Mr. Tillerson said on “Fox News Sunday.” Asked by the host, Chris Wallace, about a United Nations statement condemning the president’s words, Mr. Tillerson said that “I don’t believe anyone doubts the American people’s values” or the government’s commitment to them.
Mr. Wallace then inquired about Mr. Trump’s own values. After Mr. Tillerson’s pointed response, Mr. Wallace asked whether he was separating himself from the president on the issue.
Mr. Tillerson answered: “I have spoken. I have made my own comments as to our values as well in a speech I gave to the State Department this past week.”
On Aug. 12, a 32-year-old woman, Heather D. Heyer, who was protesting a rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, was killed when a car driven by a man who had professed admiration for Nazi ideology slammed into her and other demonstrators. During a wild news conference at Trump Tower three days later, Mr. Trump blamed “both sides” for the deadly violence.
In the weeks since Ms. Heyer’s death, Mr. Trump has alternated between singling out neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan for condemnation and asserting that what he called the “alt-left” was also to blame for the Charlottesville violence.
A group of United Nations experts, without naming Mr. Trump, criticized a “failure at the highest political level of the United States of America to unequivocally reject and condemn” racist violence.
Mr. Tillerson’s remarks on Sunday stood in stark contrast to those of another cabinet member, Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, who defended Mr. Trump’s response. In a statement on Aug. 19, Mr. Mnuchin said that “the president in no way, shape or form believes that neo-Nazi and other hate groups who endorse violence are equivalent to groups that demonstrate in peaceful and lawful ways.”
The day before, Mr. Tillerson responded to the national backlash to Mr. Trump’s comments in a talk to State Department interns and young staff members. “We do not honor, nor do we promote or accept, hate speech in any form,” Mr. Tillerson said at the event. “Those who embrace it poison our public discourse, and they damage the very country that they claim to love.”
The strongest criticism of Mr. Trump inside the administration has come from Gary D. Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, who was so upset by the remarks that he drafted a resignation letter. Mr. Cohn, who is Jewish, told The Financial Times in an interview last week that the Trump administration “can and must do better” to condemn hate groups.
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