The White House turmoil intensified as friends and relatives gathered to memorialize Heather Heyer, the woman who was struck and killed on Saturday. Susan Bro, Ms. Heyer’s mother,
told worshipers that her daughter had been protesting hatred by the nationalist groups when she was killed by one of them.
“They tried to kill my child to shut her up, but guess what, you just magnified her,” Ms. Bro said.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, denounced “hate and bigotry” in a statement on Wednesday but made no mention of Mr. Trump or his comments — an example of the careful line that some Republican officials are treading as they hope to work with the president on a conservative agenda in the months to come.
Leaders of the Republican Jewish Coalition were more direct, calling on Mr. Trump to “provide greater moral clarity in rejecting racism, bigotry, and anti-Semitism.” They added: “There are no good Nazis and no good members of the Klan. Thankfully, in modern America, the K.K.K. and Nazis are small fringe groups that have never been welcome in the G.O.P.”
David Shulkin, the secretary of veterans affairs, delivered an emotional statement to reporters on Wednesday at Mr. Trump’s private golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where the president is vacationing. Treading carefully without chiding Mr. Trump, Mr. Shulkin said: “Well, I’m speaking out, and I’m giving my personal opinions as an American and as a Jewish American. And for me in particular, I think in learning history, that we know that staying silent on these issues is simply not acceptable.”
Paraphrasing famous words from Martin Niemöller, a German pastor and a vocal critic of Adolf Hitler, Mr. Shulkin said, “First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I wasn’t a trade unionist, so I didn’t speak out. Then they came for the Jews. I wasn’t a Jew so I didn’t speak out. Then they came for me, and there was no one to speak for me.”
Many other Jewish members of the Trump administration
remained largely silent on Wednesday, even after
the protesters in Charlottesville had chanted anti-Semitic slogans and demeaned the president’s Jewish son-in-law, Mr. Kushner.