WASHINGTON _ House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi pledged on Friday to use "every avenue" to challenge President Donald Trump after three House Democrats filed a resolution condemning how the president responded to the violent protests in Charlottesville, Va.
The censure resolution denounces Trump for not immediately and specifically condemning neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups who took part in the protest and then doubling down on his comments days later, saying some of the far-right protesters were "very fine people."
The measure, filed by Reps. Jerrold Nadler of New York, Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey, is co-sponsored by 79 other Democratic members.
"With each passing day, it becomes clearer that the Republican Congress must declare whether it stands for our sacred American values or with the president who embraces white nationalism," Pelosi said in a statement.
The resolution offers an official censure of the president by Congress and urges Trump to fire any advisers "who have urged him to cater to white supremacist movements in the United States."
Calling Trump's response a "moral outrage," Nadler, Jayapal and Watson Coleman said in a combined statement the censure aims to establish that the president's comments were not a position taken by the U.S. government.
"History will remember how we responded, not just in tweets and prepared statements, but through action and a unified voice," the lawmakers wrote. "It is incumbent on all members, from all parties, to not only condemn the President's remarks, but to issue this censure of the President for the way he has represented our country and constitution."
Pelosi said the measure was just one way Democrats in the House would continue to "use every avenue to challenge the repulsiveness of President Trump's words and actions."
