House

Pelosi wants Confederate statues out of Capitol

by Mike Lillis - 08/17/17 12:25 PM ET

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday joined the growing chorus of Democrats calling for the removal of Confederate statues from the Capitol.

Calling the monuments a “reprehensible” symbol of a racist era, Pelosi urged Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and other GOP leaders to support an effort to purge the statues from the building.

“There is no room for celebrating the violent bigotry of the men of the Confederacy in the hallowed halls of the United States Capitol or in places of honor across the country,” Pelosi said in a statement.

{mosads}Ryan’s office quickly responded, noting that it’s the states, not Congress, that decide which statues should be placed in the Capitol.

“These are decisions for those states to make,” said Doug Andres, spokesman for Speaker Ryan.

Pelosi released the statement hours after President Trump lamented the removal of “beautiful” Confederate monuments around the country. Trump argued the nation was seeing its history and culture “being ripped apart.”

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) had previously called for the removal from the Capitol of Confederate monuments following the weekend’s deadly marches in Charlottesville, Va., where a counterprotester was killed and many others injured, as white nationalists clashed with protesters denouncing racism.

The “Unite the Right” rally was organized by white nationalists to protest Charlottesville’s city council vote to remove a statue of the Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a prominent park. The march turned tragic when a car rammed into a group of counter protesters, injuring at least 19 people and killing a 32-year-old paralegal, Heather Heyer.

Trump’s response in recent days has stirred a firestorm of controversy.

Initially, the president blamed “many sides” for the violence, and on Tuesday he amplified that message in a combative back-and-forth with reporters at Trump Tower in Manhattan. While condemning neo-Nazis, he also accused the “alt-left” counter protesters of being equally at fault. Trump also defended the legitimacy of marchers gathered to protest the removal of the Lee statue, which he characterized as a symbol of southern heritage.

“I wonder, is it George Washington next?” he asked.

The outcry from Democrats and some Republicans was near immediate. But Trump, not one to back down from a fight, took to Twitter on Thursday to amplify his position.

“Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments,” he tweeted. “You can’t change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson — who’s next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish!”

The ongoing saga has put GOP leaders in a bind, and they’ve responded by condemning racism in broad terms while also avoiding any criticism of their standard-bearer in the White House.

Democrats have pounced, accusing the Republicans of sheltering Trump from the fallout of remarks they deem indefensible. Pelosi’s push to remove the Capitol’s Confederate statues is just the latest overture as the Democrats hope to keep the pressure on GOP leaders to act.

Pelosi noted that the Democrats, when they controlled the House, oversaw the removal of a Lee statue from Statuary Hall, where a monument to the civil rights hero Rosa Parks now sits.

“The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation,” she said.