Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin faced calls to resign from his Yale classmates in light of President Donald Trump’s reaction to the violence in Charlottesville, VA.
Mnuchin has a simple answer: NO.
Mnuchin’s classmates from the Yale College Class of 1985 seem convinced that Trump supports Nazis and white supremacists. They wrote:
We do so today because President Trump has declared himself a sympathizer with groups whose values are antithetical to those values we consider fundamental to our sacred honor as Americans, as men and women of Yale, and as decent human beings. President Trump made those declarations loudly, clearly, and unequivocally, and he said them as you stood next to him. We can be Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, and a number of other things and still be friends, classmates, and patriots, but we cannot be Nazis and white supremacists. We can disagree on the means of promoting the general welfare of the country, on the size and role of government, on the nature of freedom and security, but we cannot take the side of what we know to be evil.We call upon you, as our friend, our classmate, and as a fellow American, to resign in protest of President Trump’s support of Nazism and white supremacy. We know you are better than this, and we are counting on you to do the right thing.
A lot of people made this assumption when Trump gave a statement on Tuesday. Our own Kemberlee set the record straight after so many twisted his words.
Mnuchin defended Trump in a statement he released on Saturday and insisted that he would not resign. From CNBC:
I don’t believe the allegations against the President are accurate, and I believe that having highly talented men and women in our country surrounding the President in his administration should be reassuring to you and all the American people. As long as I am Treasury Secretary I will do the best job I can for the American people and provide the best advice I can to the President.
As I pointed out above, Kemberlee had to write a post about these allegations because none are true. The media twisted Trump’s words and Mnuchin knows this:
Mnuchin said he was “familiar with the culture wars being fought in our country.””Some of these issues are far more complicated than we are led to believe by the mass media, and if it were so simple, such actions would have been taken by other presidents, governors, and mayors, long before President Trump was elected by the American people,” he said.
Trump’s daughter converted to Judaism. Her husband Jared, who Trump adores, is Jewish. Their children are Jewish. Mnuchin himself is Jewish:
Third, as someone who is Jewish, I believe I understand the long history of violence and hatred against the Jews (and other minorities) and circumstances that give rise to these sentiments and actions. While I find it hard to believe I should have to defend myself on this, or the President, I feel compelled to let you know that the President in no way, shape or form, believes that neo-Nazi and other hate groups who endorse violence are equivalent to groups that demonstrate in peaceful and lawful ways.
Mnuchin also criticized Trump’s critics and urged people to concentrate on the topics the majority of Americans have concerns about:
“Our president deserves the opportunity to propose his agenda and to do so without the attempts by those who opposed him in the primaries, in the general election and beyond to distract the administration and the American people from these most important policy issues – jobs, economic growth, and national security,” he said.
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