5th executive resigns from Trump’s advisory council
Another member of US President Donald Trump’s advisory council has resigned, making five the number of people quitting their jobs over his response to the Charlottesville riots in the past three days.
The top executives have resigned in protest at Trump’s support for white supremacists and the similar groups as well as the president’s handling of the violence and terror attack in Charlottesville last week.
On Saturday, thousands of white supremacists, KKK members and neo-Nazis descended on Charlottesville for a “Unite the Right” rally, but the march soon turned violent, with a 20-year-old man plowing a vehicle into a group of anti-hate demonstrators, killing a woman and injuring 20 others.
Trump initially said both groups of protesters were to blame, but later he changed his tone under pressure, blaming white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan for the violent rally.
However, during a press conference on Tuesday, Trump returned to his controversial view, saying that “not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me, not all of those people were white supremacists.”
Following his press conference, Richard Trumka, president of the largest federation of labor unions in the US, the AFL-CIO, announced his resignation.
Trumka, along with his deputy Thea Lee, said they were resigning from the manufacturing council, leaving only eight people on the board.
"We cannot sit on a council for a president who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism," they said in a statement.
"President Trump's remarks today repudiate his forced remarks yesterday about the KKK and neo-Nazis. We must resign on behalf of America's working people, who reject all notions of legitimacy of these bigoted groups."
Also, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, Scott Paul (pictured below), said Tuesday he was resigning.
Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, the only black business leader in the group, was the first to resign on Monday.
Frazier was followed by Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich on the same day.
Following the violence in Charlottesville, mass protests were held in cities across the country, criticizing the president for siding with white supremacists.
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