WASHINGTON ― House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Monday responded forcefully to President Donald Trump’s defense of the white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups that precipitated this month’s violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, while still declining to denounce Trump directly.
During a town hall forum broadcast on CNN, Ryan said Trump “messed up in his comments” in a no-holds-barred news conference last week.
“I think he made comments that were much more morally ambiguous, much more confusing, and I do think he could have done better and needed to do better,” Ryan said, in response to an audience question asking whether he would denounce Trump. “I do believe he messed up in his comments on Tuesday.”
Moderator Jake Tapper pressed Ryan further, suggesting he should criticize Trump’s defense of violent protesters as “very fine people.”
“That was wrong,” Ryan said, adding that Trump “has since then cleared that up.”
Ryan declined to say whether Trump had done enough. “We all have a lot more to do to make sure these guys don’t get normalized,” he said.
Ryan released a lengthy statement Monday morning affirming that “there are no sides.” The comment alluded to Trump blaming “both sides” for Charlottesville violence incited by a rally organized by white supremacist groups.
Calling the events “a test of our moral clarity,” Ryan attempted to present a contrast to Trump’s equivocation on the groups.
“There is no other argument. We will not tolerate this hateful ideology in our society,” Ryan said.
“That is why we all need to make clear there is no moral relativism when it comes to neo-Nazis. We cannot allow the slightest ambiguity on such a fundamental question,” he continued.
According to Ryan, “the immediate condemnations from left, right, and center affirmed that there is no confusion about right and wrong here.”
Yet Trump took more than 48 hours to call out the white supremacist, Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups.
Politicians of both parties widely condemned Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville, with a growing number of GOP lawmakers questioning Trump’s leadership and character. However, Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) issued far more tempered statements that denounced the violence ― but didn’t refer to Trump directly.
Following Trump’s combative press conference Tuesday, in which he defended the protesters as “very fine people,” Ryan responded on Twitter, saying that “there can be no moral ambiguity.”
We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity.
On Thursday, two days after Trump’s remarks, McConnell was reportedly “upset” about the president, but then issued a similarly standard statement, which made no mention of Trump.
America does not do a good job of tracking incidents of hate and bias. We need your help to create a database of such incidents across the country, so we all know what’s going on. Tell us your story.
This article has been updated to include Ryan’s comments Monday night.
Affluent Americans may want to double-check how much of their bank deposits are protected by government-backed insurance. The rules governing trust accounts just changed.
Former NBA guard Darius Morris has died at the age of 33. He played for five teams during his four NBA seasons. Morris played college basketball at Michigan.
Teams have made their big splashes in free agency and made their draft picks, it's time for you to do the same. It's fantasy football mock draft time. Some call this time of year best ball season, others know it's an opportunity to get a leg up on your competition for when you have to draft in August. The staff at Yahoo Fantasy did their first mock draft of the 2024 season to help you with the latter. Matt Harmon and Andy Behrens are here to break it all down by each round and crush some staff members in the process.
With free agency and the draft behind us, what 32 teams look like today will likely be what they look like Week 1 and beyond for the 2024 season. Matt Harmon and Scott Pianowski reveal the post-draft fantasy power rankings. The duo break down the rankings in six tiers: Elite offensive ecosystems, teams on the cusp of being complete mixed bag ecosystems, offensive ecosystems with something to prove, offenses that could go either way, and offenses that are best to stay away from in fantasy.
It’s key to note that we’re not saying the “best team” or “best roster.” Instead, we’re talking about the best confluence of factors that can outline a path for survival and then success.
Jake Mintz & Jordan Shusterman discuss the Padres-Marlins trade that sent Luis Arraez to San Diego, as well as recap all the action from this weekend in baseball and send birthday wishes to hall-of-famer Willie Mays.
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate edged back toward 7% this week but remains elevated, prompting housing experts to revise their forecasts for the rest of 2024.
In the most anticlimactic way possible, Nintendo on Tuesday confirmed years of rumors: The Nintendo Switch 2 console is on the way. "We will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year," wrote Shuntaro Furukawa, the president of Nintendo, on X. Rather, Furukawa wanted to warn users not to expect the actual announcement in next month's Nintendo Direct livestream.
An annual government report offered a glimmer of good news for Social Security and a jolt of good news for Medicare even as both programs continue to be on pace to run dry next decade.