Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said "we can have no tolerance for an ideology of racial hatred." | John Shinkle/POLITICO Republicans admonish Trump in wake of Charlottesville comments 'There are no good neo-Nazis,' says Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

GOP lawmakers and party leaders rebuked President Donald Trump on Wednesday after the president claimed again on Tuesday that both sides were responsible for a deadly clash in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend.

"We 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," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement, his first since Trump's news conference Tuesday. "We all have a responsibility to stand against hate and violence, wherever it raises its evil head."


“Pathetic, isn't it? Just pathetic listening to this and hearing these marchers,” a visibly agitated Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Wednesday morning on NBC’s “Today” show. Trump “needs to make it clear. I mean, he’s got to fix this, and Republicans have to speak out, plain and simple. Who cares what party you're in?”

The GOP had seemingly breathed a sigh of relief earlier this week, when Trump stepped to a lectern in the White House on Monday, declared that “racism is evil” and called hate groups “repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.” The remarks, although somewhat stilted, were much more direct in their condemnation than his initial comments, offered Saturday from his New Jersey golf club, in which he did not specifically reject the white supremacist groups who had marched that day and instead decried the “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.”

But any progress Trump made with his Monday remarks seemed undone Tuesday, when the president declared that there had been “very fine people on both sides” of the clashes between white supremacists and protesters gathered to oppose their presence. The clashes left Heather Heyer, 32, 19 people injured. The president bristled at the use of the term “alt-right,” pinning some blame on what he called the “alt-left,” and again suggesting that “there’s blame on both sides.”

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The backslide quickly prompted a stern rebuke, not just from Kasich, one of the president’s most vocal GOP critics, but also from allies including House Speaker Paul Ryan and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, both of whom took to Twitter on Tuesday to once again condemn white supremacists and other hate groups. And unlike Monday morning, when Trump administration officials, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Vice President Mike Pence, did morning TV interviews to bolster the president, criticism of the president Wednesday morning across the airwaves was almost unanimous.

“Yesterday's conference, it was a failure of leadership. I mean, I really do think that was the case yesterday. You know, I think the conference before that was fine and strong,” Rep. Scott Taylor (R-Va.), a former Navy SEAL, told CNN’s “New Day.” “But yesterday was not the best day. There's no question about it. You know, there is no moral equivalency. They should absolutely be condemned, the Nazis and KKK.”

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo noted at the end of his interview with Taylor that the Virginia lawmaker was the only elected Republican the show could find who was willing to appear on "New Day" Wednesday morning. Across the major morning news shows, both cable and broadcast, Taylor appeared to be the only member of Congress to make an appearance Wednesday morning.

"America must always reject racial bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred in all forms," former Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush wrote in a joint statement released Wednesday by the latter's spokesman. "As we pray for Charlottesville, we are reminded of the fundamental truths recorded by that city’s most prominent citizen in the Declaration of Independence: we are all created equal and endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights. We know these truths to be everlasting because we have seen the decency and greatness of our country."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a regular critic of the president, said in a statement issued Wednesday by his office that Trump's words are "dividing Americans, not healing them.”

“Through his statements yesterday, President Trump took a step backward by again suggesting there is moral equivalency between the white supremacist neo-Nazis and KKK members who attended the Charlottesville rally and people like Ms. Heyer. I, along with many others, do not endorse this moral equivalency," Graham said. “Many Republicans do not agree with and will fight back against the idea that the Party of Lincoln has a welcome mat out for the David Dukes of the world."

Duke, a former KKK leader and a former Louisiana state legislator, was in Charlottesville on Saturday and thanked the president, via Twitter, on Tuesday for “for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists.” Ronna Romney McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, told ABC on Wednesday morning that Duke's comments make "everybody's stomach turn, and I think it makes the president's stomach turn."

Trump's Saturday and Tuesday remarks, while surprising to many, are in line with his past behaviors. As a candidate, Trump was unwilling to immediately reject Duke's endorsement, instead telling CNN's Jake Tapper at the time that "I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists" and waiting days to rebuke the former Klan leader's support.

In another episode from the 2016 campaign, Trump shared from his Twitter account an image of Democrat Hillary Clinton over a background of hundred-dollar bills with a six-pointed star, assumed to be the Jewish Star of David, with the words "most corrupt candidate ever" written inside. The image had previously appeared on an anti-Semitic message board, although the Trump campaign insisted that the star had been intended as a sheriff's badge and not as any religious imagery.

Kasich, in his interview with NBC, was emphatic in his criticism of Trump’s rhetoric surrounding Saturday’s violence. Recalling what a reporter had said in a preceding segment, the Ohio governor said the white supremacists’ actions in Virginia were “reminiscent of what we saw in Germany in the 1930s.” By not forcefully and consistently condemning it, Kasich said Trump could be doing permanent harm to the office of the presidency.

“I didn't endorse the man because I felt that he was a person of division. And I have been hoping and I have been restrained in wanting him to be better,” Kasich said. “See, what's happening, the presidency is being reduced to another CEO job. The presidency is the most important job in the country. And there is a bitterness setting in that may not be able to be removed.”

Perhaps the strongest defense of Trump on Wednesday morning came from McDaniel, whose uncle, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, had written online Tuesday that the white supremacist groups and the protesters they clashed with were “not the same” and came from “morally different universes.”

The RNC chairwoman, in an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” tried to claim that Trump had been unequivocal in his denunciation of hate groups and that such groups have “no place in the Republican Party.” She diverged from Trump, though, telling ABC that “When it comes to Charlottesville, the blame lays squarely at the KKK and the white supremacists who organized this rally and put together an entire event around hate and bigotry.”

“Well, the president condemned the white supremacists and the KKK and the neo-Nazis unequivocally,” McDaniel told ABC anchor David Muir.

“But It took 48 hours for him to do that,” Muir interjected.

“But he did it, and he should have, and he did. And our party has across the board has said this is unacceptable. We have no place in our party at all for KKK, anti-Semitism, race — racism, bigotry, it has no place in the Republican Party,” she said. “There is no home here. We don't want your vote. We don't support you. We'll speak out against you. The president has said so.”

