Adm. Mike Mullen, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would not criticize President Donald Trump specifically for his response to the violence this weekend in Charlottesville, but called for all leaders to stand up for unity.
"It’s not just about the president from my perspective," Mullen told NBC's "Meet the Press" moderator Chuck Todd. "I think political leaders, community leaders, leaders throughout the country need to start standing up to unify this country.”
Several people, including Republican Sens. Cory Gardner of Colorado and Marco Rubio of Florida, criticized the president Saturday, saying his comments, following the riots and after a car crashed into several protesters, did not attack the white supremacists involved directly.
But on Sunday, Mullen commented that the people of the United States are "divided, and we are becoming more divided."
"We need to work together as a country, within the differences that we have, but we cannot let this kind of incident or what feeds this kind of incident continue to grow," he said. "In fact, the opposite has to happen.”
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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