Trump Lashes Out After Merck CEO Resigns Over President's Charlottesville Remarks
NEW YORK (AP) - The CEO of the nation's third largest pharmaceutical company is resigning from the President's American Manufacturing Council citing "a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism."
President Donald Trump lashed out almost immediately Monday at Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier on Twitter, saying Frazier "will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!"
Frazier's resignation comes shortly after a violent confrontation between white supremacists and protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one person dead and 19 injured.
Frazier said in a tweet on Monday that the country's leaders must "honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy."
Trump is back at the White House and ignoring shouted questions about the race-fueled clashes in in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Trump briefly waved as he walked alone into the building, which is under renovation. He did not respond to loud queries from reporters about whether he condemns white supremacists and whether he condemns the actions of neo-Nazis.
One woman was killed Saturday when a car plowed into a group of counter-protesters who'd gathered to oppose a rally by white nationalists and others who oppose a plan to remove from a Charlottesville park of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Trump has said "many sides" are to blame for violence.
The president is in Washington for one day during a working vacation mostly in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is telling ABC's "Good Morning America" that the death of a woman in Charlottesville, Virginia, "does meet the definition of domestic terrorism in our statute."
Sessions said the Justice Department is pursuing the case "in every way."
He added: "You can be sure we will charge and advance the investigation towards the most serious charges that can be brought, because this is an unequivocally unacceptable and evil attack that cannot be accepted in America."
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