Trump changes his tune

Monday morning it took just a couple of hours for President Trump to jump on Twitter and fire back at a business executive who resigned his post on the White House American Manufacturing Council, citing his concern over the actions in Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend and the president's tepid response to it.

It took the president nearly 48 hours to finally condemn by name the white nationalists and other groups involved in the Charlottesville 'Unite the Right' rally.

That tells you pretty much everything you need to know about Trump, and about the problems this country continues to have when it comes to race.

Kenneth Frazier is CEO at Merck, one of the biggest drug manufacturers in the world.

While Trump remained conspicuously absent from this favorite social media after violence broke out at the rally in Charlottesville, including an incident in which a 20-year-old man rammed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a 32-year-old woman, it didn't take him long to take aim at Frazier.

Trump jumped on Twitter and unloaded on Frazier, saying on Twitter that he will now "have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!" In the meantime, it was not until later Monday afternoon that Trump read a statement and condemned the hate groups - the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and other white national groups by name.

I'm glad the president finally saw the light.

But I wish he had done it Saturday.

That would have been presidential.

The act yesterday afternoon in which he read his carefully crafted statement from a teleprompter had the lok and feel of a man caving to immense pressure - some of it coming from his own staff and fellow Republicans.

Monday afternoon two more executives resigned from the business council.

On our editorial page today, we talk about the president's actions - or rather his 48 hours of inaction - and the problems this country continues to grapple with when it comes to race.

You can read it here.

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