The Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, has issued a strong statement in response to the petition from some of his Yale classmates "to resign in protest of President Trump's support of Nazism and white supremacy."
Mr. Mnuchin appears to be keeping his eye on the ball:
I believe that there is a great opportunity to simplify regulations, reform taxes, and generate millions of jobs through higher growth. Additionally I will use all the powers and resources of the Department of the Treasury's Terrorism and Financial Intelligence units to combat and stop terrorist financing domestically and internationally. These are my most important priorities as Treasury Secretary.
He also makes two points about the Charlottesville controversy. First, if these Confederate monuments are so horrible, why weren't they removed during the Obama administration:
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.
Second, at least some of those now denouncing Trump as a supporter of Nazism and white supremacy never voted for him in the first place and may in fact be hoping he will fail or prove their dire negative assessments of him during the campaign to be correct:
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.
