Protesters Shoot down White Nationalist Rally Organizer; Lawmakers Criticize White House Response
BLITZER: The president has been slammed with growing backlash for his failure to specifically call out white supremacist after that atrocious attack in Charlottesville, Virginia. President Trump said that many sides are responsible for the fatal rally, but many republicans are saying that's not enough. Here's Senator Cory Gardner on the "State of the Union" earlier today.</s>SEN. CORY GARDNER (R), COLORADO: This is not a time for vagaries. This isn't the time for innuendo or to allow room to be read between the lines. This is a time to lay blame. To lay blame on bigotry and to lay blame on white supremacist, on white nationalism and on hatred. That needs to be said. This president has done an incredible job of naming terrorism around the globe as evil, a radical Islamic terrorism, whether it's in Europe or the Middle East. He has said and called it out time and time again and this president needs to do exactly that today. He called this white supremacism, this white nationalism with evil and let the country hear it, let the word hear it. It's something that needs to come from the oval office and this White House needs to do it today.</s>BLITZER: Let's go to our white house correspondent Athena Jones. She's joining us now from Bridgewater, New Jersey. She's covering the president, not very far away right now. He's continuing what he calls his working vacation. Athena, what is the latest, what has been the reaction, the official reaction, from the president, if any, today?</s>ATHENA JONES, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Wolf. We have not heard from the president today. I was just checking his Twitter feed to see if he's tweeted just in the last few minutes and he has not. So no word on exactly what he's up to. But we did hear from his daughter Ivanka Trump on Twitter earlier this morning. She is, of course, a senior adviser to the president. Here is what she tweeted earlier today. She said, "There should be no place in society for racism, white supremacism and neo-Nazis. We must all come together as Americans and be one country united, #charlottesville. This morning, we also heard from a White House official who put out a statement that went further than what we heard directly from the president yesterday. Let me read that statement as well. The White House official said, the president said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred. Of course, that includes white supremacist, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups. He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together. I just want to note one more thing we heard this morning on "State of the Union" from the White House's homeland security adviser Tom Bossert, he after being pressed repeatedly by Jake Tapper said that -- he said, "I condemn white supremacist and racist and white Nazi groups and all the other groups that espouse this kind of hatred. What's interesting here, Wolf, is that these words that we're now hearing Tom Bossert, from an unnamed White House official and the president's daughter, all go much further than what the president said yesterday and that is what has drawn all of this condemnation from not just democrats but also from republicans like Senator Cory Gardner and it is a growing list of republicans, allies of the president, who want to see him do more. What's also interesting here, Wolf, is that the president had a chance to respond directly, to go a little further. The press who were there for that press, that brief appearance before the media yesterday, tried to ask him questions as he was leaving the room. Shouting, specifically, whether he wants the support of white nationalists? The president clearly heard those questions and chose to ignore them. For the remainder of the day, I and my colleagues press White House officials for more on why the president made the statement in the way that he did. I asked several people where he stands on white nationalism, and it took until today to get some sort of answer. So I think that there are going to be a lot of people who still aren't satisfied and won't be satisfied, until they hear the president himself condemn these white nationalists and white supremacists who staged these demonstrations yesterday.</s>BLITZER: He could easily do that. There's a pool of reporters including you. There's camera crews over there in New Jersey. He could go out and make a statement, or at a minimum, he could simply retweet Ivanka Trump's tweet. He hasn't done that either. Here's something that's perplexing. The statement that the White House put out simple, as you point out, an "unnamed" White House official. Do we know who that official is? Why is that official unnamed? Why doesn't somebody come forward and specifically say this is a statement from the press secretary or a statement from the chief of staff? Why is this an unnamed official making such an important statement?</s>JONES: That's the question we're all asking here as well, Wolf. No answer so far. It seems to me that, or it seems to many of us, that if the White House is trying to perhaps clean this up a bit, seeing the reaction that the president's remarks got yesterday, that they would go further and at least attach someone's name to it, because it has more force that way. This is really what it all comes down to. This is why there's so much criticism of President Trump himself. Because it's a bully pulpit for a reason. A lot of folks would say and they argue that the president isn't showing leadership. He talks about wanting to unite the country, to bring people together and yet won't name, won't specifically talk about the facts on the ground that led to the violence we saw unfolding on the streets of Charlottesville yesterday. So it is curious to have this White House official not wanting to put their name to this statement.</s>BLITZER: Very curious, indeed. But if the president does want to make a statement, of course, all the major TV networks, all the cable networks, we will be there we'll have live coverage of any statement that the president is ready to make, if he decides in the coming hours to go before the cameras. There's so many people, including many republicans, are strongly urging him to do it. The fact he hasn't done it yet, raising a lot more questions. Athena, we'll get back to you as soon as you get word if the president will make a statement. We'll get right back to you as well. Thanks very, very much. Coming up, we're going to speak to someone on the ground of Charlottesville, Virginia, who is at the rally and saw a former Ku Klux Klan leader speak out what he witnessed and his thoughts on what happened. We'll take a quick break. Our special coverage continues.