Nearly a week after President Trump doubled down and said that “both sides” were responsible for the violence in Charlottesville that left one woman dead, House Speaker Paul Ryan has released a longer statement that challenges the President’s false equivalency all without using the words “white,” “supremacist,” “nationalist,” or “Trump.”

Ryan opens his statement by applauding the grace of Heather Heyer’s family and mentioning how news of what was happening in Charlottesville ended his family’s camping trip. Ryan then says he hoped that the country could “unite in opposition to this bigotry,” and the repudiations from all sides “affirmed that there is no confusion about right and wrong here,” despite the President doing the opposite:

I still firmly believe this hate exists only on the fringes. But so long as it exists, we need to talk about it. We need to call it what it is. And so long as it is weaponized for fear and terror, we need to confront it and defeat it. That is why we all need to make clear there is no moral relativism when it comes to neo-Nazis. We cannot allow the slightest ambiguity on such a fundamental question.

Ryan ends his statement saying this current moment is a test of morality and that “we can and must do better” so that future Heather Heyer’s aren’t killed.

It’s clear enough that Paul Ryan’s talking toward the President with these remarks, but it may be a little toothless — after a week and without saying the president’s name.

(Via Paul Ryan on Facebook)