The Senate wants President Trump to officially go on record condemning the deadly white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia, last month, a new report said Wednesday.
Democratic Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine along with GOP Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, plan to introduce a Senate resolution later Wednesday that condemns the violence in Charlottesville while “rejecting white nationalists, white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and other hate groups,” Politico reported.
Backers of the bi-partisan measure will introduce it as a joint resolution, which means it will be sent to Trump to sign into law.
“Let there be no mistake: what happened in Charlottesville was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by a white supremacist, one that tragically cut short the life of a young woman, Heather Heyer, who was speaking out against hatred and bigotry,” Warner said in a statement introducing the measure.
“We will be pressing our colleagues to swiftly and unanimously approve this resolution in order to send a strong message that the United States Congress unconditionally condemns racist speech and violence.”
Kaine said the resolution calls on Trump to “do better” than his initial response, in which he blamed the violence “on many sides” and that there were “very fine people” among the torch-carrying white nationalists and neo-Nazis who organized the demonstration.
“During the violent white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville last month, our country lost three brave Virginians in Heather Heyer and Virginia State Police officers, Lieutenant Jay Cullen and Trooper Pilot Berke Bates,” Kaine said.
“This resolution honors their lives while supporting the Charlottesville community as it heals and rightfully calls on us all, including President Trump, to do better as we combat acts of hate.”
The resolution calls white supremacy and neo-Nazism “hateful expressions of intolerance that are contradictory to the values that define the people of the United States.”
Gardner was the first GOP senator to urge Trump to condemn the white supremacists, saying “we must call evil by its name” and labeling the violence in an act of “domestic terrorism,” the website reported.
The White House did not immediately respond when asked if the president planned to sign the measure.