President Donald Trump “is now glorifying a loser” in praising Gen. Robert E. Lee as a great general, Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said Sunday.
In an interview on ABC News’ “This Week,” the House Majority Whip said Trump wasn’t backing away from comments about the deadly 2017 Charlottesville, Va., protest because “I think he's expressing what is in his heart.”
“I find it kind of interesting that the president is now glorifying a loser,” Clyburn said. “He always said that he hated losers. Robert E. Lee was a loser.
“And even if you could get beyond that, at the end of the Civil War, Robert E. Lee asked all of his comrades to lay down their guns and to furl those confederate flags, and if my memory serves, and put them in your attics,” he continued. “So if the president is going to glorify Robert E. Lee, let’s at least be consistent about it.”
Before leaving to speak at a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Saturday, Trump said he responded to Charlottesville “perfectly.”
“If you look at what I said, you will see that that question was answered perfectly and I was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general, whether you like it or not, he was one of the great generals,” Trump said.
Clyburn disagreed.
“The fact of the matter is, Robert E. Lee was a great tactician, was not a great person,” he said. “Robert E. Lee was a slave owner and a brutal slave master. Thankfully he lost that war.”
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.