(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump claimed that he's unfamiliar with the Proud Boys, a right-wing vigilante group he advised to โstand back and stand byโ during Tuesday's debate, and said they should step aside to let police regulate protests.
โI don't know who the Proud Boys are,โ Trump told reporters before departing the White House for a fundraiser and rally in Minnesota on Wednesday. โWhoever they are, they need to stand down, let law enforcement do their work.โ
Trump has drawn criticism for declining to directly condemn White supremacy at the invitation of the debate moderator, Fox News host Chris Wallace. After Wallace suggested Trump tell groups like the Proud Boys to โstand down,โ Trump responded, โProud Boys, stand back and stand by.โ
Members of the group celebrated the remark on social media.
On Wednesday, the White House and some GOP allies backed Trump's remarks on White supremacy, noting that he said โsure,โ โI'm willing to do thatโ and โI'm willing to do anythingโ in response to Wallace's entreaties to condemn the groups.
But the only Black Republican senator called on the president to โcorrectโ his comments.
โI think he misspoke,โ Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina told reporters Wednesday at the Capitol. He added, curtly: โI think he should correct it. If he doesn't correct it I guess he didn't misspeak.โ
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator Lindsey Graham supported Scott's statement.
โIt was not Lincoln-Douglas,โ McConnell told reporters about the debate. โWith regard to the White supremacy issue, I want to associate myself with the remarks of Senator Tim Scott that he put out earlier today.โ
Scott, McConnell said, โsaid it was unacceptable not to condemn white supremacists. I do so, in the strongest possible way.โ
In a tweet Wednesday, Graham said: โI agree with @SenatorTimScott statement about President Trump needing to make it clear Proud Boys is a racist organization antithetical to American ideals.โ
After his remarks on the Proud Boys at the debate, Trump pivoted to blame the far-left anti-fascist movement known as antifa for violence, even though his nominee for Homeland Security secretary has said White supremacists are the โmost persistent and lethal threatโ to the U.S. from within the country.
QuickTake: Why Proud Boys, Antifa Got Trump-Biden Debate Cameos
Trump campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley and White House spokeswoman Alyssa Farah both said Wednesday morning that Trump's response -- โsureโ -- to Wallace's question amounted to a condemnation.
โHe says โsure' right out of the gate to that question,โ Farah told Fox News.
โHow many times, how many ways does he have to say it?โ Gidley said in a Wednesday morning interview on CNN that focused largely on Trump's views on White supremacy groups.
Read More: Trump Tells Violent, Far-Right Group: โStand Back and Stand By'
They also downplayed his remarks that the Proud Boys should โstand back and stand by,โ which members of the group interpreted as a call to future action. โI don't think that there's anything to clarify. He's told them to stand back,โ Farah said.
Several Republican lawmakers sought to give the president the benefit of the doubt and used the same line of argument as Trump's aides, saying extremists of all stripes should be condemned.
โHe asked, โWould you denounce it?' What'd the president say? โYes. Yes I will',โ House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said during a news conference. โHow many times does he have to say it? If the question is โWould you denounce it' and the answer is โYes,' he did that.โ
McCarthy didn't answer a follow-up question about Trump's โstand back and stand byโ comment about the โProud Boysโ group but countered by faulting former Vice President Joe Biden for not more forcefully condemning antifa.
โIt would be concerning to me that Joe Biden would not believe antifa is a group,โ McCarthy said. FBI Director Chris Wray recently testified to the House Homeland Security Committee that antifa is an ideology not an organization.
Trump on Wednesday tweeted a video of Fox News commentator Dan Bongino, who said the president โbrilliantlyโ played to his core voters during the debate.
โForget independents, it's a base election,โ Bongino said. โHe's the shark in the ocean and he acted like it. He lost no one from his base. No one.โ
Indiana GOP Senator Mike Braun said it's important to denounce White supremacist groups, and he doesn't believe Trump intended to stop short of that.
โI know for certain that he denounces that,โ Braun said. โAnd I think it's fair to say you can denounce both sides of radical elements.โ
Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democratic leader, said he feels a sense of โoutrageโ similar to what he felt after the deadly 2017 โUnite the Rightโ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when the president appeared reluctant to condemn right-wing violence and suggested there were โfine peopleโ on both sides.
โThe president has to understand White nationalism, White supremacy is unfortunately the leading cause of a lot of domestic terrorism in the United States and he's just afraid to confront them,โ Durbin said. โI'm afraid he believes they're his followers and he doesn't want to make them angry before an election.โ
Speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday morning, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump's remarks in Tuesday's forum was โone of the most disgraceful performances at a presidential debate that anyone has ever seen.โ
โIn an hour and a half that felt like a lifetime, the president managed to insult Vice President Biden's deceased son and smear a living one, please a fringe White supremacist group and capped the night off by yet again casting doubt on our own elections, tarnishing our own democracy,โ Schumer said. โThose were just his worst moments.โ
Some Republicans suggested that the president should have taken a stronger stance by condemning more forcefully both White supremacists and other radical groups.
โHe should have been very clear, and he should have made it very clear that there's no room for people on the far left or the far more far right,โ said Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota. โWhen it comes to either an antifa or these White supremacist groups, he should have been very clear.โ
While not addressing Trump's comments specifically, Senator Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, said that extremist groups should be condemned.
โI condemn White supremacy, all extremist groups,โ Young said. โI think that all of these groups are equal, and I condemn them on the strongest terms, and we need to remain one nation under God.โ
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