Trump: American History Is Being 'Ripped Apart' With Removal Of Confederate Statues
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- President Donald Trump says it's "Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart'' with the removal of Confederate statues and monuments around the country.
Local and state officials have renewed pushes to remove Confederate imagery from public property since the violence and death of a woman in Charlottesville, Virginia, during a white nationalist rally over the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue.
Baltimore and other cities have already removed or covered up Confederate statues.
Trump in a Thursday tweet called them "our beautiful statues and monuments'' and said "you can't change history, but you can learn from it.''
"Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson - who's next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish!'' Trump continued. "The beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!''
On Wednesday, two plaques honoring Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee were removed from a maple tree outside St. John's Episcopal Church in Brooklyn.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo is also asking the Army to have Confederate names removed from the streets of Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn.
Mayor Bill de Blasio says the city will conduct a 90-day review of "all symbols of hate" on city property in wake of last weekend's events in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The mayor has already ordered the removal of a granite marker honoring Henri Philippe Pétain on the Canyon of Heroes on Morris and Broadway in Manhattan. Pétain was found guilty of treason in France after he helped the Nazis lead thousands of the Jewish faith to their deaths.
Meanwhile at Bronx Community College, the college president said the school will be removing and replacing the busts of confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson after requests from community members.
House Democrats, including Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), have introduced a resolution to censure Trump for saying both sides were to blame for the violence in Charlottesville, 1010 WINS' Al Jones reported.
"I thought it was the least we could do," Nadler said Thursday. "We have to give the Republicans a chance to put their money where their mouth is, and we have to show the world that the president doesn't speak for us in these things."
"Normally, the president represents the United States to the world. But when he comes out and justifies a moral equivalency of white supremacists and neo-Nazis with people protesting them, we have to show that he doesn't speak for the country, and the only other body that can do that is the Congress," Nadler told WCBS 880's Rich Lamb.
The resolution goes one step further, urging him to fire anyone who advised him to take the stance.
"There's obviously a lot of support from the Democrats. The Republicans, we're waiting to see," Nadler said.
With the Republicans in control of the House, it's a long shot the resolution will even come up for discussion, Jones reported.
(© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
