CHARLESTON, W.Va. — It’s rare for U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito to criticize the leader of the Republican party, but in the wake of President Donald Trump’s remarks about the violence in Charlottesville the Republican Senator from West Virginia spoke out.
“I don’t think he’s handled it very well at all,” Capito told the Charleston Gazette-Mail in an interview from Israel.
“I think he’s sent mixed messages. I think he’s created a firestorm where there shouldn’t be one. We’re talking about anti-Semitic, racist, white supremacists who should have no place in this country, on the streets of beautiful towns like Charlottesville or any other town in our country. I think the president’s reaction has been unfortunately very unsatisfactory.”
The President has issued three separate sets of remarks in reaction to the Charlottesville violence in which he blamed the violence on members of both sides who clashed over the Robert E. Lee statute in the Virginia city. In his second statement the President condemned the white supremacist organizations, but in a third statement suggested there were, “some very fine people on both sides.” One of the sides include members of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.
Capito strongly disagreed.
“I can’t find a fine face in that crowd, and I’m not going to try either,” Capito told the newspaper.
The violence culminated with a car being driven into a crowd of protestors, leaving one of member of the counter demonstration group dead. Trump has refrained from calling the action “terrorism.” Capito did not show that same restraint.
“Using a car to mow down people because of a fundamental belief is a pretty good definition of, in my view, terrorism,” she said.
Capito’s remarks on the subject came almost a week after the Charlottesville violence. A rally is scheduled for 5 p.m. Sunday at the West Virginia State Capitol complex organized by Call to Action for Racial Equality and Black Lives Matter. West Virginia has been in the conversation about the removal of Confederate monuments this week with a statue dedicated to Confederate soldiers and a bust of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson outside the state Capitol building.