Third Trump council resigns: Ignoring his "hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit"

The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities has resigned en masse in reaction to Donald Trump’s full-throated embrace of white supremacists, and other offensive actions and rhetoric he has used since assuming the presidency.

The 17-member group works with teachers and leads cultural delegations to other countries. Melania Trump was the honorary chair of the group, which included actor Kal Penn, author Jhumpa Lahiri, and Vicki Kennedy, the widow of Sen. Ted Kennedy.

It’s the third presidential council to leave Trump behind in the last week. The Manufacturing Council and the Strategy & Policy Forum were disbanded after multiple CEOs dropped out in response to Trump’s racial rhetoric. After the mass departure, Trump tried to claim that ending the councils was his idea.

In an open letter to Trump, members of the arts committee issued a brutal rebuke of Trump’s behavior.

“The Administration’s refusal to quickly and unequivocally condemn the cancer of hatred only further emboldens those who wish America ill,” the letter states. “We cannot sit idly by, the way that your West Wing advisors have, without speaking out against your words and actions.”

Referencing Trump’s attacks on the media, draconian budgets defunding the arts, threats of nuclear war with North Korea, decision to leave the Paris climate accords, and his intention to ban transgender military service, the group declared, “Ignoring your hateful rhetoric would have made us complicit in your words and actions.”

The letter concludes with a powerful call for Trump to resign.

“Supremacy, discrimination, and vitriol are not American values. Your values are not American values, ” it states. “We must be better than this. We are better than this. If this is not clear to you, then we call on you to resign your office, too.”

Trump has become more and more isolated in the presidency, as even a few Republicans have joined the rest of America to criticize his behavior.

Famed Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein reported earlier this week that there is a growing consensus among military leadership and the intelligence community that Trump is “unfit” to be president and that they have “given up” on him.

Susan Bro, the mother of Heather Heyer, who was killed in the Charlottesville attack, spoke for a lot of Americans when she said she would not accept a phone call from Trump after he equated white supremacists with counter protesters.

Trump’s circle continues to shrink, and he stands all alone, against decency.