President Donald Trump's statement Monday condemning racist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists, was good, but didn't come across as sincere, conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer said.
"What's shocking is that the president of the United States did not have the instinctive, reflexive automatic response you would expect of any American leader," Krauthammer said Monday on Fox News Channel's "Special Report."
Trump came under criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike on Saturday when he gave what they deemed a tepid condemnation after skirmishes between some members of an alt-right rally and some counterprotesters resulted in a death in Charlottesville, Va.
Thirty-two-year-old Heather Heyer died after a car driven by 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr., an attendee of the alt-right rally, drove his car at high speed into the counterprotesters.
Trump on Saturday noted that violence had come from "many sides," which caused critics to call on him to specifically denounce racist groups by name.
He did that on Monday, but Krauthammer said his original "many sides" line appeared ad-libbed and natural, whereas his listing of hate groups on Monday sounded like he was reading from a teleprompter.
That's something Trump criticized his competitors in the campaign for, Krauthammer said.
"He had to read from a prompter for the names of these groups rather than spontaneously answering on his own on Saturday when he was on his own."
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