Mitt Romney Pens Powerful Message Calling On Trump To Apologize For Charlottesville Remarks

Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney called on President Donald Trump to “acknowledge that he was wrong” and apologize for his remarks about the violent Charlottesville rally.

In a Facebook post Friday, Romney urged Trump to “state forcefully and unequivocally that racists are 100% to blame for the murder and violence in Charlottesville.” He asked the president to “definitively repudiate” the support of David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader who thanked Trump for condemning “leftist terrorists” in his remarks on the events in Virginia.

“Whether he intended to or not, what [Trump] communicated caused racists to rejoice, minorities to weep, and the vast heart of America to mourn,” Romney wrote.

Romney emphasized that Trump’s hesitation to explicitly condemn white supremacist groups could be a national security issue.

“Our allies around the world are stunned and our enemies celebrate; America’s ability to help secure a peaceful and prosperous world is diminished,” Romney wrote. “And who would want to come to the aid of a country they perceive as racist if ever the need were to arise, as it did after 9/11?”

He also argued Trump should be setting a better example for children across America.

Read Romney’s full Facebook post below:

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People gather in downtown Chicago on Aug. 13 to protest the alt-right movement.
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Ahead of President Donald Trump's visit, about 400 demonstrators on Fifth Avenue near Trump Tower in New York attend a rally protesting the violence in Charlottesville.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.