Member of Trump’s Diversity Council calls for Bannon to resign

Javier Palomarez, a member of President Trump’s National Diversity Council, is pushing for White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon to resign following the president’s response to the violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va. 

Palomarez, president and CEO of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said Tuesday that Trump’s response to the events in Charlottesville last weekend were “shallow, belated, and feckless.” He said that Bannon, a former executive at Breitbart News considered a connection to both Trump’s populist base and the “alt-right,” should be fired. 

Trump was widely criticized when, instead of denouncing white nationalist and far-right groups immediately after a counter-protester was killed in Charlottesville, he faulted “many sides” for the violence.

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“Denouncing white supremacy without equivocation and without reservation should have been a no-brainer for President Trump. Sadly, it seems clear that influential members of his administration were more worried about winning votes through dog whistles and winks and nods to the most evil elements of our society than in maintaining the moral authority of the presidency,” Palomarez said in a statement given to The Hill. 

He also said that the resignation of CEOs from the president’s American Manufacturing Council was not surprising given Trump’s poor response. 

His remarks come after congressional Democratic leadership and minority caucuses also called for Bannon’s firing, following the rally in Charlottesville where one woman died and at least 19 others were injured when a car drove into a crowd of people protesting the rally. 

Palomarez called out Bannon for “his history of proudly cultivating the so-called ‘alt-right,'” which encompasses many of the white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups who rallied at Charlottesville, and said that Trump must fire Bannon and others like him to keep his credibility among minority communities. 

“Firing Steve Bannon is the first step,” said Palomarez in the statement, “and a needed step to begin the process of healing the bad feelings this administration has engendered.”