Some of the following information appeared on VICE News Tonight on HBO on Wednesday, August 16, 2017.A lot of people watched yesterday’s disaster of a presidential press conference and thought, here it is: The moment when outrage and character will defeat party loyalty. It hasn’t exactly shaken out like that.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put out a statement this morning condemning hate groups and making clear that, quote, “there are no good neo-Nazis.” But the GOP reaction has been largely muted.Just to be sure, we spent most of Wednesday trying to give all 292 of them a chance to tell us otherwise. We wanted to ask whether they were morally outraged about Trump’s comments yesterday, in which he seemed to draw a moral equivalence between white supremacists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville. Did any Republican in Congress plan to act?The vast majority of Republicans’ offices said they would have to get back to us or that we would have to try back later. Of course, none of the offices were jumping to get their representatives on the phone with us. Several gave us written statements or read a canned statement over the phone.Only one Republican member of Congress was ultimately willing to speak to us, Congressman Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, a moderate. It was clear he’s frustrated with the White House:Out of every other office we called today, six provided or referred us to a statement that specifically targeted Trump.Sen. Jerry Moran, Kansas:
“What the president said is indefensible and, again, should not be tolerated. White supremacy, bigotry, and racism have no place in our society. And we must all come together to denounced this hatred to the fullest extent. And that includes the president of the United States.”Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida:
Ros-Lehtinen’s office directed us to this tweet:
Mitchell’s director of communications referred us to Mitchell’s Tuesday tweet, and when asked how Mitchell would act moving forward, said, “I think the statement speaks for itself.”
Huizenga’s office referred us to this Facebook post:
“Today, President Trump had the opportunity to clearly refute the ideology spread by groups such as the KKK and White Supremacists and failed to do so. This shouldn’t be a tough decision. If an ideology promotes hate and targets individuals because of their race, religion, or gender it should be refuted.”Rep. Carlos Curbelo, Florida:
Curbelo’s press secretary referred us to his tweet, adding over email, “We’ll have an op-ed out later this week with more.”
Like many other offices, Royce’s office asked us to send them an email. They never replied. But Royce did tweet on Tuesday:
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“There’s no question the GOP — for this type of hate-mongering, intolerance we saw in Charlottesville on Saturday, there’s no place for that kind of hatred in our party, nor should there ever be. We are the party of Abraham Lincoln. We are the party that emancipated the slaves and led the fight in the Civil War to end and abolish slavery once and for all. That is our tradition; that is our history … Our party has a long history of supporting individual rights as Americans, regardless of their gender, faith, or race. That is our tradition. We need to remind people that that is our tradition — especially now given what happened over the weekend.”
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“What the president said is indefensible and, again, should not be tolerated. White supremacy, bigotry, and racism have no place in our society. And we must all come together to denounced this hatred to the fullest extent. And that includes the president of the United States.”Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida:
Ros-Lehtinen’s office directed us to this tweet:
Rep. Paul Mitchell, Michigan:
Mitchell’s director of communications referred us to Mitchell’s Tuesday tweet, and when asked how Mitchell would act moving forward, said, “I think the statement speaks for itself.”
Rep. Bill Huizenga, Michigan:
Huizenga’s office referred us to this Facebook post:
“Today, President Trump had the opportunity to clearly refute the ideology spread by groups such as the KKK and White Supremacists and failed to do so. This shouldn’t be a tough decision. If an ideology promotes hate and targets individuals because of their race, religion, or gender it should be refuted.”Rep. Carlos Curbelo, Florida:
Curbelo’s press secretary referred us to his tweet, adding over email, “We’ll have an op-ed out later this week with more.”
Rep. Ed Royce, California:
Like many other offices, Royce’s office asked us to send them an email. They never replied. But Royce did tweet on Tuesday:
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About eight more Republican members of Congress have made similar comments critical of the president, but did not respond to our request today.Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida:
Sen. John McCain, Arizona:
Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina:
Rep. Leonard Lance, New Jersey:
Rep. Pat Tiberi, Ohio:
Rep. Will Hurd, Texas:
Rep. Barbara Comstock, Virginia:
Rep. Peter Roskam, Illinois:
Rep. Mike Gallagher, Wisconsin: