WASHINGTON: A US senator, who heads the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has questioned President Donald Trump’s ‘stability and competence’ to lead the nation after the president defends White supremacists.

Senator Bob Corker’s rebuke is likely to hurt the president more than the usual slamming of his regular critics as he is known in Washington as a soft-spoken lawmaker who chooses his words carefully.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr Trump considered asking the Republican senator to join him as a running mate.

“The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful,” Mr Corker told journalists in his hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Thursday.

“He has not demonstrated that he understands what has made this nation great and what it is today, and he’s got to demonstrate the characteristics of a president who understands that,” the senator added.

The Tennessee Republican also said that he thinks there must be “radical changes” within the White House.

Mr Corker is not the only Republican lawmakers to slam Mr Trump on his handling of the racist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, where hundreds of White supremacists held rallies last weekend to protest the removal of a confederate statue.

The rallies led to clashes with counter protesters and a woman was killed when a White nationalist drove his car into a crowd protesting against the pro-confederate rally. Confederates supported slavery during the American civil war and any mention of the country’s confederate past irks civil rights activists, both in the Republican and Democratic parties.

President Trump, however, refused to blame White supremacists alone for the weekend violence that also caused the death of two police officers in a helicopter crash. Mr Trump said that there were many good people in the supremacist rally as well and that “many sides” were responsible for the violence that killed the anti-racist woman.

On Thursday, he also said that removing confederate monuments was “saddening” and were demanded by those who wanted to change the American history. The statement caused key Republican senators — including Marco Rubio of Florida, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — to criticise President Trump.

“The organisers of events which inspired & led to Charlottesville terrorist attack are 100% to blame for a number of reasons,” Senator Rubio said.

“Mr President, you can’t allow White Supremacists to share only part of blame. They support idea which cost nation & world so much pain,” he added.

“There’s no moral equivalency between racists & Americans standing up to defy hate& bigotry. The President of the United States should say so,” said Senator McCain.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2017