Sen. Mike Lee is the first of Utah’s congressional delegation to criticize President Donald Trump for defending white supremacists.
“Carrying a Nazi flag or any other symbol of white supremacy is a hateful act that cannot be morally defended, least of all by the leader of a diverse nation still healing from its original sin of racist slavery,” Lee wrote on Facebook.
At a press conference Tuesday, Trump reiterated his first response to the violence that rocked Charlottesville, Va. this past weekend, suggesting “both sides” were to blame.
The president’s most recent remarks come one day after he condemned neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan by name for inciting the racist rallies where a car plowed into a group of counter-protesters, killing a woman.
The Salt Lake Tribune will update this story.