Richard Trumka said he quit the White House manufacturing jobs council after consulting union members who saw President Trump's press conference at Trump Tower as a "spirited defense" of white supremacy. | Alex Brandon/AP Trumka: Some White House trade backers 'turned out to be racist'

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Wednesday morning that some White House aides who support protectionist trade policies "turned out to be racist," after President Donald Trump held a news conference blaming both sides for the unrest at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"You had two factions in the White House," Trumka told reporters at a breakfast roundtable in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "You had one faction that actually had some of the policies that we would have supported on trade and infrastructure, but turned out to be racist."


"And on the other hand, you had people who weren't racist, but they were Wall Street."

Trumka said he quit the White House manufacturing jobs council, which Trump later dissolved, after consulting union members who saw Trump's news conference at Trump Tower as a "spirited defense" of white supremacy and neo-Nazism.