President Donald Trump caved to pressure from his senior advisers on Monday when he rebuked neo-Nazis and white supremacists for their involvement in the rally that ended in the death of a 32-year-old Charlottesville woman — but it may have been a Pyrrhic victory.

His remarks on Monday, authored in part by chief speechwriter Stephen Miller, put some of his most ardent supporters in the cross hairs, and quelled the outrage sparked by his initial statement, which was widely considered weak and equivocal.


But the White House’s slow-footed response, which played out over three days, fit a broader pattern that has hobbled the president before. Pushed to condemn some of the ugly factions of the alt-right made prominent by his candidacy, Trump has fallen back on the same tactic: delay, delay, delay.

In fact, Trump had a written statement on Saturday that was similar in tone and substance to the one he delivered on Monday, according to a senior White House adviser. But the president veered from those prepared remarks.

Political analysts said Trump’s drawn-out response was part of a double game — an effort to avoid alienating part of his base followed quickly by a pivot to tamp down the outrage.

“He feels he can keep his base happy by being mute for 48 hours, and then he can come in and mute the so-called mainstream media world,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley.

The White House’s response appears to have done just that. The president’s short speech on Monday earned bipartisan praise while leaving some of Saturday’s marchers still feeling a part of the Trump movement.

“He actually sounded presidential,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat, told NBC News. “But I’m disappointed it took him a couple of days.”

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Meanwhile, Richard Spencer, an organizer of the Charlottesville rally, told reporters that Trump had not condemned his movement. “His statement today was more kumbaya nonsense,” Spencer said. “Only a dumb person would take those lines seriously.”

The white supremacist website the Daily Stormer celebrated the president’s response over the weekend. David Duke credited the president with inspiring Saturday’s rally and lashed out at Trump for his initial remarks. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump’s Johnny-come-lately response to the tragedy followed the template he established during the campaign when he was pressed to disavow the endorsement of Duke — a former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and a leader of the Saturday event. In August 2015, Duke declared Trump “the best of the lot” of the GOP candidates.

Over the course of several months, Trump dodged questions, feigned ignorance and stonewalled reporters to avoid directly repudiating Duke’s endorsement. “Sure, if that would make you feel better, I would certainly repudiate. I don't know anything about him,” he told MSNBC’s John Heilemann in August 2015.

Duke ratcheted up his support for Trump in February 2016, urging listeners of his radio show to cast their ballots for the real estate mogul turned politician, culminating in a testy exchange with CNN’s Jake Tapper. “I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists,” Trump told him. “I don't know — did he endorse me, or what's going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists.”

Pressed about the Klan in particular, Trump said, “You may have groups in there that are totally fine and it would be very unfair, so give me a list of the groups and I'll let you know.”

Trump later blamed his fumbled response on a faulty television earpiece — of course he disavowed Duke, he told NBC the following day. But that came after his remarks had become front-page news and sparked backlash on both sides of the aisle.

As the violence escalated on Saturday, the president was briefed by several aides. Homeland Security adviser Thomas Bossert told Trump that protesters on both sides white supremacists armed with torches, baseball bats and batons, as well as counterprotesters, club-wielding “anti-fas” — were inciting violence, according to a White House aide familiar with the situation. That gave the president the runway to point the finger at both sides, setting off a three-day political firestorm that didn’t subside until Monday.

“It was David Duke redux,” Brinkley said. The president's name was not attached to a statement circulated by the White House to reporters on Sunday indicating that he condemned the hate groups behind the rally, which exacerbated the situation.

Politicians and editorial pages across the political spectrum condemned Trump’s mealy-mouthed response over the weekend. National Review’s editors called it “vague and equivocal.” The Wall Street Journal editorial page labeled it a “missed opportunity.” And the New York Post, the president’s favorite hometown newspaper, declared, “It shouldn’t be that hard to summon up a few Trumpian terms like ‘losers’ and ‘really, really bad people’ to describe the hundreds of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, white supremacists and the like who descended on the college town — not after one of them has killed an innocent.”

There are also signs that Trump’s response to the crisis is causing him to bleed political support — if not from the alt-right, from rank-and-file Republicans who are moving to distance themselves from the president as his daily approval rating dipped to just 34 percent, according to Gallup, the lowest level of his presidency.

Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, who leads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, was one of the first GOP lawmakers to criticize Trump’s response on Saturday. Gardner is responsible for protecting and growing the Senate majority in 2018.

“Mr. President, we must call evil by its name,” Gardner wrote on Twitter. “These were white supremacists and this was domestic terrorism.”