Aug. 17 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Thursday criticized the removal of Confederate monuments in the United States, saying that “beauty” is “being taken out of our cities.”
Trump made the comments during a series of posts on Twitter.
“Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments,” he wrote. “You can’t change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson – who’s next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish!”
“The beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!” he continued.
The president’s tweets came amid criticism Trump has received over his response to the Charlottesville, Va., attack last weekend.
During a press conference on Tuesday, Trump defended his initial responsethat “many sides” were responsible for violence that resulted from protests and counter-protests in Charlottesville — clashes sparked by the removal of a Confederate statue there, and which resulted in the death of 32-year-old counter-protester Heather Heyer.
The city of Baltimore also removed multiple Confederate monuments in the early morning hours Wednesday.
The fallout from Trump’s press conference includes the dismantling of two of his advisory boards — the American Manufacturing Council and the Strategic and Policy Forum.
“Racism and murder are unequivocally reprehensible and are not morally equivalent to anything else that happened in Charlottesville,” Campbell Soup President and CEO Denise Morrison wrote after she left the manufacturing council Wednesday. “Following [Tuesday’s] remarks from the president, I cannot remain on the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative. I will continue to support all efforts to spur economic growth and advocate for the values that have always made America great.”
