The following article by Mike DeBonis was posted on the Washington Post website August 16, 2017:
House Democrats are exploring ways to push wary Republican lawmakers to go beyond measured statements denouncing last week’s white-nationalist rallies in Virginia and President Trump’s equivocal response to them.
Three Democrats on Wednesday announced plans to introduce a House resolution censuring Trump for his remarks, which included the suggestion made Tuesday that some “very fine people” were among those who participated in the racist “Unite the Right” march and that “both sides” were to blame for violence that killed a Charlottesville woman and injured many others.
“We’re at a very significant juncture here,” Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), one of the measure’s co-sponsors, said in an interview. “We can either have peace, or we can have this president fuel and fan the fires of violence, and that is scary. He needs to be held accountable.”
The move to censure the president — which has been accompanied by parallel efforts to increase scrutiny of white supremacist groups and to remove symbols of the Confederacy from federal property, including the U.S. Capitol — reflects a growing frustration among Democratic lawmakers and activists with the seemingly never-ending cycle of Trump controversies.
There is no indication, however, that Republican leaders will be inclined to take action on a censure resolution. The House has not censured a president since 1848.
There was one sign of bipartisan cooperation Wednesday — though one not aimed directly at Trump. The House Homeland Security Committee said a hearing next month on terrorist threats would include a discussion of racist extremism, following a demand from the panel’s Democrats for a public examination of the white nationalist movement.
“Racial intolerance deserves no place in America and it is imperative that we find ways to rid our nation of the scourge of white supremacism,” panel chairman Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) wrote in a letter agreeing with the Democrats’ request.
Since Trump launched his presidential run two years ago, his words and actions have repeatedly prompted his fellow Republicans to issue carefully crafted responses condemning particular episodes but without denouncing Trump personally. Several, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), have simply refused to comment on many of the president’s tweets. A spokesman for Ryan declined to comment on the Democrats’ censure effort.
But many Democrats believe Trump’s effort to draw an equivalence between the racist marchers and counterprotesters crossed a new line of misbehavior and should draw a more serious level of accountability.
“The irony for Republican leaders is that they thought they could weasel out of Trump being Trump by blaming it on Twitter and saying, ‘I don’t like it when he tweets,’” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic political strategist. “The problem is, he stood at a mic with cameras running and provided the opportunity for 20 minutes to defend the behavior of Nazis and white supremacists. They’ve sort of run out of excuses.”
Both top congressional leaders issued statements clearly denouncing the white-nationalist marchers after Trump’s Tuesday news conference.
“White supremacy is repulsive,” Ryan tweeted. “This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Americans “can have no tolerance for an ideology of racial hatred.”
“There are no good neo-Nazis, and those who espouse their views are not supporters of American ideals and freedoms,” he added. “We all have a responsibility to stand against hate and violence, wherever it raises its evil head.”
Their rebuke of Trump remained implicit, however, even as other GOP lawmakers chose to explicitly criticize the president.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), for instance, tweetedWednesday, “White nationalism and racism are antithetical to our fundamental values. The President needs to be crystal clear that hatred has no place in our society, but he is currently failing at it.”
“Blind allegiance to the supreme leader? No thanks,” tweeted Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.). “He’s dead wrong here and I won’t stop saying it.”
And Rep. Patrick J. Tiberi (R-Ohio), a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee who is close to Ryan, said Trump “deflected from the fact that a young woman was killed & others were injured by a bigoted follower of the white supremacist movement.”
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), a co-sponsor of the Trump censure resolution, said GOP members have been approached about supporting the effort but none have yet signed on.
“I am hoping that they will put their money where their mouth is,” Nadler said Tuesday. “This should not be viewed in normal political terms. What Donald Trump did was not a normal political reaction for a president of the United States.”
Another House Democrat, Rep. Gwen Moore (Wis.), issued a statement after Trump’s news conference Tuesday calling for Trump’s “removal” as president: “For the sake of the soul of our country, we must come together to restore our national dignity that has been robbed by Donald Trump’s presence in the White House.”
Top House Democrats have so far resisted calls to impeach Trump over his alleged ties to Russia or his potentially unconstitutional business dealings. Instead, they have called for more aggressive investigations of Trump and a rigorous inquiry into the recent resurgence in white-nationalist activity.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) again played down impeachment calls at a Wednesday event in Los Angeles, but she flagged the “deafening silence” of Republican lawmakers on Trump’s behavior.
“What we saw yesterday was the president clearly demonstrating that he doesn’t know right from wrong, true from false, American patriotism from white nationalism,” she said. “Very sad for our country.”
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