Trump decries monument removals and ‘history being ripped apart’

Mr Trump’s remarks came as the White House tried to manage his increasing isolation and the continued fallout from his combative comments on last weekend’s racially charged violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.

He also tore into fellow Republicans who have criticised his statements on race and politics, fanning the controversy towards a fully fledged national conflagration.

Pressured by advisers, the president had taken a step back from the dispute on Monday, two days after he had enraged many by declining to single out the white supremacists and neo-Nazis whose demonstration against the removal of a Robert E Lee statute had led to violence and the death of a counter-protester in Charlottesville.

He returned to his combative stance on Wednesday – insisting anew that “both sides” were to blame.

And then in a burst of tweets on Thursday he renewed his criticism of efforts to remove memorials and tributes to the Civil War Confederacy.

“You can’t change history, but you can learn from it,” he tweeted. “Robert E. Lee. Stonewall Jackson – who’s next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish. …

“Also the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!”

He was not talking about beauty in earlier tweets, lashing out at Republican senators Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake.

He accused “publicity-seeking” Mr Graham of falsely stating his position on the demonstrators, called Mr Flake “toxic” and praised a Flake primary election opponent.

Mr Graham said on Wednesday that Mr Trump “took a step backward by again suggesting there is moral equivalency” between the marching white supremacists and the people who had been demonstrating against them.

Mr Flake has been increasingly critical of Mr Trump in recent weeks.

Other Republicans, including the most powerful in Congress, have been making strong statements on Charlottesville and racism, but few have been mentioning Mr Trump himself.

The Senate’s top Republican, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, condemned “hate and bigotry”.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said that “white supremacy is repulsive”.

But neither criticised the president’s insistence that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the violent weekend clash in Virginia.

The nuanced statements reflect the party establishment’s delicate dance.

Few top Republican officeholders want to defend the president in the midst of an escalating political crisis, yet they are unwilling to declare all-out opposition to him and risk alienating his loyalists.