Unpack. An nbc news exclusive. Vice president pence leaps to the defense of President Trumps response, to the violence in charlottesville. I take issue with the fact that many in the media are spending more time criticizing how the president addressed the issue in just one hour, the man accused of intentionally ramming his car into activists, into protesters, kills one of them, appears in court for the first time. Those who knew that young woman best. They want the world to know exactly what we lost. Im trying to honor my daughter the way that i know she would want to be honored. And republicans and ceos distance themselves from the white house. These groups seem to believe they have a friend in donald trump in the white house. We of got to move this morning with President Trump heading back to the white house any minute now. According to the attorney general, we are expecting him to take another shot at addressing the weekends violence at some point today. This comes after he was highly criticized by members of both parties for failing to directly condemn. White supremacists. We have a great team here to break it all down. There is so much to unpack beginning with Nbcs Kristen Welker in bridgewater, new jersey, just down the street from the president s golf resort. Kristen, what is the white house saying now about the weekends events . We wait for the president to say more and still he doesnt. They are saying that it is likely we will hear more from President Trump today about this but youre sloift right, the bottom line is there is mounting pressure on him to explicitly and forcefully denounce white supremacist groups to call them out by name, something that he failed to do over the weekend, which sparked a fierce backlash from democrats and republicans who are now unified in saying his response fell flat and it fell flat in terms of his leadership responsibilities. Our own Peter Alexander is traveling with the Vice President in cartagena, colombia, and he pressed him on the president s lack of a strong response. Heres how the Vice President responded this morning. Take a listen. We condemn in the strongest terms the hate and violence advocated by groups like White Supremacists, neonazis and their ilk. Thats one side. Whats the over side when he says on many sides . As you look throughout the course of recent years, we of seen protests turn violent. We of seen Fringe Groups use peaceful protests to bring violence in some cases against Police Officers. With respect, one yesterday killed an american. And were bringing the full weight of the federal government to bear on investigating and prosecuting that individual. Now, important to point out that ivanka trump over the weekend did tweet out that White Supremacists are at the root of this. She called them out, called out neonazis and the white house issued a followup statement to President Trumps initial statement saying that the president does in fact p denounce White Supremacists and neonazis. But a lot of people want to hear those words coming out of President Trumps mouth, and he doesnt done that. And there is fresh fallout right now, steph, the president of merck saying that he is withdrawing in the president s jobs council e. This is a statement from kenneth frazier. He says im resigning from the president s American Manufacturing council. Our country stems from diversity and the contributions made by men and women of different faiths, races, sexual orientations, and political beliefs. Americas leaders must honor our fundamental values by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry, and group supremacy. The president firing back just moments ago on twitter saying now that ken frazier of merck pharma has resigned from president S Manufacturing council, he will have more time to lower ripoff drug prices. So the president choosing to engage with the ceo of merck, but we still havent heard from him again on those violent clashes that were in virginia over the weekend. The president is expected to meet with his attorney general and the fbi director later today to get briefed on the investigation, steph. Extraordinary. The president goes after the ceo of merck. We of soon him go after jeff sessions, seen him go after mitch mcconnell, and yet he still does not go afterneonazis. I want to take moment to explain the backdrop for all of this. As the weekend began nationalists, White Nationalist groups, in 2017, including White Supremacists, the kkk, and neonazis marched through charlottesville, virginia weather torches, protesting the removal of a statue of robert e. Lee. Saturday when they showed up at a park for a protest, antiracism activists were there. Angry words quickly escalated into fighting. As of last night, three people had been arrested. Then just a few how shalls later the situation turned deadly and we should warn you, this video is disturbing. As activists peace marched just a few blocks from the park, a man intentionally drove his car into the crowd, mowing down people, then backing up, hitting even more. At least 19 people ended up going to the hospital. And 32yearold hieather heyer, who had been walking with friends, was tragically killed. James field was arrested and charged with seconddegree murder. Hell appear in court in less than one mile an hour. Nbcs justice correspondent Pete Williams has more on that. Pete, what exactly are we calling all of this . Domestic hate crimes . Domestic terrorism . What was this . Its certainly being investigated by federal authorities as hate crime. He faces murder charges in virginia and we of sove seen t pattern before here where you have local authorities pursuing their own charges and the federal government doing a civil rights investigation. So youll have two parallel investigations going on here. The feds will look, of course, at motive although for the virginia authorities the motive isnt as important as the fact of what happened. Thats what led to the seconddegree murder charges that well hell face. In an hour hell appear by Video Conference in a local virginia courtroom in just a little while, be, the federal authorities will do their civil rights investigation. Fields is 20 years old. He was born in kentucky. He moved with his mother to maumee, ohio, a suburb of toledo, earlier last year, and then he moved out of his mothers house about six months ago. He told his mother he was going to drive charlottesville. She says she had no idea that he was going to be involved in anything violent. She thought it was some sort of a rally to support the president. So she said he didnt arrive this with intent to do this. And thats one of the questions for investigators, steph. Theyll look at whether this was planned in advance or whether this is just something that boiled up inside of him and he decided to d this on the spur of the moment. Theyll also look at if it was planned, whether other people were involved in helping him plan it, steph. Put that into perspective, what this mother thought he was going there for, a trump ral lish rally, and this was the result. Hours after the rally, numerous protests were held saturday and sunday, peace demonstrators from new york, l. A. , and other major cities across the country gathered together to reject White Nationalist ideologies and remember hetd eHeather Heyer, w killed in charlottesville. For more on her story, maya, charlottesville, virginia, that is city, a town, home of uva, considered a national treasure, a beautiful place, and this young woman loved by her community. Reporter and she was from here. For all intents and purposes, Heather Heyer was a local. She wnt to an area high school. She was a paralegal here in charlottesville, and this is where she died. Were at the intersection of 4th and water streets, and as you can see, they have set up a makeshift memorial here. People have been leaving candles and flowers. You see her picture there. They of been doing this all weekend long. People writing messages on the street here, messages of love and peace. There was supposed to be a formal vigil last night at uva but it was canceled because of a credible threat according to organizers. They did not go into what the threat was. In an exclusive interview, health ears mother talked about her love for her daughter and how shes trying to cope with this loss. Im very sad, im very, very sad, but i cant be angry because angry will make me hate, and hate only leads to more hate. And theres just no point to that. Heather wouldnt have wanted that either. She would have said why hate, what does that accomplish, what would that do for anybody . Reporter now, in her last facebook post, which is dated november of 2016, heather wrote, if youre not outraged, youre not paying attention. In the incident that ended up killing heather, 19 other people were injured. Local hospital that was treating all those people who were injured say ten are in Good Condition and the rest have been discharged. Stephanie . Heather heyer lost her life while standing up for what she believes in. Thank you. I want to break down what stands out for me, the question i want answered. Stay with me here. President trump questioned the legitimacy of the first black president. He very much avoided on the campaign, denouncing david duke, and he made Stephen Bannon a public champion for the altright, a senior white house aide along with sebastian gorka, stephen miller. He pushed racial buttons during his campaign. On saturday he went off script and referenced many sides. All of that continuing to do just that, pushing those racial put on thes, so much so that david duke and others took the president s comments as showing support for them. And if that is not his goal, then it is the president s opportunity now, today, to clear that up. I want to bring in my panel to help me understand all of this. Msnbc political analyst and former rnc chairman, Michael Steele, and former democratic congresswoman Donna Edwards, senior fellow at the Brennan Center for justice. Thats a lot to unpack. It is. Michael, we talked about what the president did say, but in all fairness we should share his own words and some of what he did. We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides, on many sides. Why . Honest to goodness. Im not talking about deplorable americans. Good, honest americans who voted for President Trump, and those who didnt, across the country, neonazis do not represent what america does. Why wouldnt he denounce it . Its nobrainer. It is a nobrainer but it is part of a continuing narrative for this president that hes always sizing up how to keep his audience in play. And as you saw from the reaction from duke and others out there, they took what he said, that many other sides, those many sides, as sort of a way to go, okay, yeah, its all good. Were all right. Youre all right. And thats unfortunate. I think along with a lot of other republicans the president missed an enormously important opportunity. Its one thing as a candidate, okay, weve got that, we know what campaigns are like and what they do. Now youre in the office and the mantle of response that comes with that has to change your behavior. It has to change the way you look at these things. Now you how you look at the country. Were not living in this sort of reality tv fantasy land. These this neonazi idiots are real. They killed someone. Idiots is an understatement, michael. It is. I could have said wrestling in the back seat. If you want me to, isle g there. Look, this is cable, isle go there. Lets go with idiots because its the nicest, politist thing i can say at the moment. But the president giving them cushion, giving them comfort whether he meant to or not i think is part of the problem this administration has in communicating exactly where this president is on matters of race. Heres the thing. I mean, from birtherism to candidate trump refusing to for a long time disavow the kkk to now giving license and emboldening the kkk, neonazis, White Supremacists, White Nationalists, and to having represent tich atives of those factions in his white house, this president hasnt changed, and theres almost nothing the president can say today to erase what has happened over the last 48 hours. But im going the tell you, he needs to make some kind of a strong statement and it doesnt need to come from ivanka and pence and mcmaster and everybody around him. It needs to come frp the lips of the president of the United States. Then lets share what mike pence had to say. Take a look. Oh, excuse me. We have republican Corey Gardner from the state of colorado. Well share with he said. This isnt a time for. Anything to be read between the lines. This is a time to lay blame on bigotry, on white supremacist, on White Nationalism and on hatred. Off republican coming out of there. This isnt a surprise. President trump has no problem fighting with the gop. But even mike pence turned and said how the media is representing this. Is mike pence taking the wrong turn here . Mike pence is covering his man. Hes the number two. Hes not going to stray off that script. He just isnt. Thats unfortunate. But thats the reality of the politics. I think other republicans, you know, out there like cory guarder in and Lindsey Graham are saying what needs to be said. The congressman is right. The words have to come from the president s lips in order for us to take it seriously and to say he has turned the page and now recognizes the full responsibility and weight that he carries for all of us when it comes to dealing with this issue. Because there is no soft peddling this. There is no shaving off. There is no many sides. Theres one side here. It is the people who have hate in their heart and express that hate by killing someone this past weekend. And they killed Heather Heyer died in the name of the president of the United States. David duke said it himself. The president , were doing this on behalf of President Trump. He is our president. And so only the president can stiff arm these people and he needs to get them out of the white house and he needs to say to the American People there are not many sides, i stand on the side of the overwhelming majority of the American Public this and the kkk neonazis, White Supremacists, White Nationalists are somebody else. Does this become a worse problem for the president . Until now many said its dog whistle, or he didnt clearly denounce david duke, but to donnas point, Heather Heyer died on President Trumps watch when all of this happened and youve got david duke out there after the fact say, see, hes our guy. Does President Trump look even worse now . Does this put him in a worse position . I think it does. I think the president , despite the fact that he and maybe some around him think that he doesnt have any tank coming off of this, that there is no need for him to get any deeper into this, that hes wholly agnostic on race, the fact is this happened on your watch. These racist, ugly incidents were stoked through your campaign, and you gave license to, voice to the very same people that for a generation we of been fighting against the david dukes of the world, and now they feel emboldened and empowered. Heres the to other problem. The problem is a political one for the republican party, because this taint is on your house too. So thats why its important for cory and others to stand up and say, wait a minute, this aint us. This is not us. We need create lot of room and a lot of separation here political i but most importantly for the American People to understand where this administration is when it comes to dealing with race in this country. For the gop, this is their guy, what about the white house . We spent the last two weeks talking about the turning of the white house. General kelly was there. General kelly was there this weekend. Theres no turning when the president of the United States on his own script cannot call out by name White Supremacists. Call out the kkk. Call out neonazis. The bright line here tx president feels free to call out everybody else, as you pointed out, stephanie, but he cant call this by name. That is a problem. And the problem didnt just happen over the weekend. The problem happened during the course of the campaign. When he knew that he was wrapping himself around these people who were part of his base in order to win an election, and that is at the foot of the republican party. And i know some of them are trying to distance themselves right now, but theres to only so much distance that you can create between yourself and the president of the United States who sits in the oval office under a gop mantle who cannot call racism out by name. Here we are eight months in and were covering domestic terrorism again. Were going the take a break. Next, much more on the violence in virginia over the weekend. A reporter there covering the protests became involved when she got attacked. Shes going the share exactly what happened to her as a journalist in charlottesville. Stay with us. [vo] progress is seizing the moment. Your s