US Senator Bob Corker has condemned President Donald Trump’s response to a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the latest member of Congress to do so, saying his lack of "stability and competence" threatens the country.
“The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful. And we need for him to be successful, our nation needs for him to be successful,” Corker told reporters on Thursday in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Corker, a Republican from Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Trump needs to understand that he represents all Americans and his role in advocating hate is jeopardizing the US.
“I would ask he take stock of who he is, as president of all the people in our nation, and that he condemn those things that are separating us,” Corker said, adding that he disagreed with the president’s stance on Confederate statues.
“He also has recently not demonstrated that he understands the character of this nation,” he added. “He has got to demonstrate the characteristics of a president who understands that. And without the things that I just mentioned happening, our nation is going to go through great peril.”
Trump has come under increasing pressure over his stance on the racial violence, with many members of his own Republican Party and US business executives distancing themselves from him.
On Saturday, thousands of white supremacists, KKK members and neo-Nazis descended on Charlottesville for a “Unite the Right” rally. The march turned violent after a man linked to white-supremacist groups plowed his vehicle into a group of counter-demonstrators protesting against racism, killing a woman and injuring 19 others.
The white supremacists rally was organized to protest the removal of Confederate monuments and memorials from public spaces, specifically the Robert E. Lee statue in Emancipation Park in Charlottesville.
Three UN human rights experts have warned about the rising racism and xenophobia in the United States, citing the rally in Charlottesville as the latest example.