Kaine: Trump's rhetoric 'emboldens' white nationalists

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine on Sunday slammed President Donald Trump's rhetoric in the wake of a shooting that killed 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand.

In an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation," Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, ripped Trump for not calling out white nationalism and "using language that emboldens them."

"It is on the rise and the president should call it out but sadly he's not doing that," Kaine said. "We saw in the aftermath of the horrible attack in Charlottesville that he tried to say that the white supremacists, neo-Nazis, neo confederates there were just, you know, good people," Kaine said.

The accused shooter in Friday's attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, praised Trump as a symbol of white identity in a lengthy, rambling manifesto filled with anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Trump mourned that attack in a tweet Friday. But Trump also said he doesn't view white nationalism as a rising worldwide threat, calling white nationalists "a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess."

"The president uses language often that's very similar to the language used by these bigots and racists," Kaine said. "And if he's not going to call it out then other leaders have to do more to call it out and I certainly will."

"I think the president is using language that emboldens them. He's not creating them. They're out there," Kaine said, adding, "That kind of language from the person who probably has the loudest microphone on the planet Earth is hurtful and dangerous and it tends to incite violence."

Kaine, the Democratic nominee for vice president in the 2016 election, isn't the only lawmaker criticizing Trump's rhetoric.

In an interview on CNN's "State of the Union," Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said Trump's language "doesn't help."

"I don't think you can actually take each of the murderous acts and say what role Donald Trump played, but I can tell you this. His rhetoric doesn't help," Klobuchar said.

"And many of these people ... have cited Donald Trump along the way," she said. "So, to me, that means, at the very least, he is dividing people. They are using him as an excuse."

Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine