Leaders of several minority congressional caucuses are asking President Trump to fire three of his White House advisers following the deadly attack in Charlottesville, Va. over the weekend.
The heads of caucuses representing Hispanic, Asian and black lawmakers, as well as House progressives, want Trump to fire White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, adviser Sebastian Gorka and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller.
The groups linked their request to the president’s response to last week’s violence in Charlottesville, Va., where one person was killed and 19 injured after a man drove a car into a crowd of people protesting a white nationalist rally.
“In this time of tumult in our country, Americans deserve a leader that will bring us all together and denounce those who seek to tear us apart,” the letter reads.
“In that vein, we strongly urge you to move expeditiously to remove Steve Bannon, Sebastian Gorka and Stephen Miller from the White House. The ideology and political agenda of these men have no place in the highest office in the land.”
The letter was first reported by The Associated Press.
The leaders of the Congressional Quad-Caucus include the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Black Caucus.
In the letter, which is dated Tuesday, they describe Bannon’s presence in Trump’s administration as “incredibly alarming and dangerous.” They also refer to Breitbart News, the conservative website Bannon helmed until joining Trump’s campaign last year, as a “white nationalist, ‘alt-right’ website.”
The letter ties Miller to white supremacist Richard Spencer. Mother Jones in December reported that Miller and Spencer became acquainted at Duke University when both were students in the 2000s.
It says Gorka has ties with a far-right group in Hungary whose predecessor was believed to be under the direction of Nazis by the State Department.
Trump on Monday condemned racism, calling it “evil” and denouncing white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis. This came two days after saying there were “many sides” to blame for the violence at the rally, which was held to protest the removal of a Confederate statue.
The letter from the four caucuses says Trump’s “dereliction of leadership” following Charlottesville has sent a message to hate groups that “bigotry and discrimination have a place” in the United States.
“Americans deserve to know that white nationalists, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis are not in a position to influence U.S. policy,” the letter says.