White House Struggles to Explain Trump’s Confederate Flag Stance

(Bloomberg) -- The White House struggled for a second day to explain President Donald Trump’s embrace of the Confederate flag, with one of his top aides on Tuesday saying the display of the banner should be debated, not rejected outright.

Kellyanne Conway, senior White House counselor, said in a Fox News interview that Trump views the Confederate flag, which many view as a symbol of hate, as a “freedom of speech issue.”

“But I think its a good conversation for this country to have,” Conway said. “I have this same conversation with my own children.”

Meanwhile, allies including Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, have broken with the president on the issue.

Yet Trump’s embrace of the flag, as well as Confederate names on military bases, signals a new emphasis in his campaign to leverage divisive issues that fire up his political base as his poll numbers sink over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and protests over police brutality against Black Americans.

Surveys show that much of the country agrees with the protesters’ demand for racial justice -- signaling broad rejection of Trump’s stance on the Confederate flag. Other elected Republicans have treaded more carefully around the issue.

Conway’s remarks come a day after White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany attempted to explain why the president appeared to defend the flag on Twitter. She said Trump was speaking only in general terms.

“The president made clear he was not taking a position one way or the other in that tweet,” McEnany told reporters on Monday when asked to make an unambiguous statement about the flag.

Trump tweeted Monday morning that Bubba Wallace, Nascar’s only Black full-time driver, should apologize after a noose was found in his garage and claimed that the racing circuit’s television ratings dropped because it banned the Confederate flag at its tracks.

Graham, speaking Monday, drew a rare contrast with the president.

“I’ve lived in South Carolina all my life and if you’re in business, the Confederate flag is not a good way to grow your business,” Graham said in an interview with Fox News Radio.

The president’s latest comments are a departure from his stance as a candidate in 2015, when he said of the flag: “I think they should put it in a museum and let it go.”

Conway on Monday cited those comments, even though Trump’s tone has shifted.

The Marine Corps last month banned images depicting the Confederate flag from public spaces on its installations, while the president threatened to veto a defense policy bill if it included language that provided for renaming bases honoring Confederate leaders.

According to CNN, Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican whose state last week abandoned its flag bearing the Confederate battle insignia, said: “It’s a symbol that more and more represents a day in the past that we don’t want to celebrate.”

Wicker said Nascar’s decision to ban the flag from its races helped push Mississippi to change its flag, which had the same design since 1894.

”I think it helped,” Wicker said, CNN reported. “It created a bandwagon effect.”

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