President Trump “is facing heated criticism over not publicly condemning white nationalists for inciting this weekend’s bloody confrontation in Charlottesville, but on Monday he criticized the head of Merck pharmaceuticals for quitting a federal panel in protest of Mr. Trump’s equivocal response to the violence,” the New York Times reports.

Said Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier: “America’s leaders must honor our fundamental views by clearly rejecting expressions of hatred, bigotry and group supremacy, which run counter to the American ideal that all people are created equal.”

Less than hour later, Mr. Trump, responded on Twitter: “Now that Ken Frazier of Merck has resigned from President’s Manufacturing Council, he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!”

“I believe in the president’s agenda. I believe in his leadership. He has a right to scold his cabinet members if he’s not happy with them.”

— Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in an interview with NBC News, on President Trump’s public criticisms of him.

Financial Times: “In the days to come, the president and his advisers will doubtless work to amend or reinterpret what was said over the weekend. None of this will obscure the challenge facing the US. To the extent that it is the role of the president to provide moral leadership, the White House is unoccupied. That void must be filled, and it falls first to the Republicans, the party in control of the legislative branches, to do so…”

Politico: “Inside President Donald Trump’s White House, no one seems to be looking forward to September. Senior officials have described the coming month as ‘brutal,’ ‘bad’ or ‘really tough’ because of the confluence of complicated issues — but they also say it’s pivotal to getting the presidency back on course. Aides hope to have a better blueprint for how the president wants to proceed on a series of thorny issues — the nation’s debt ceiling, the 2018 federal budget, tax reform, infrastructure spending and perhaps another stab at repealing Obamacare — after a series of meetings in New York this week.”

“Their goal is to partially temper Trump’s expectations, hammer out some compromises and get a competing band of aides on the same page… Trump, who is impatient, wants it all done immediately, said people close to the president — and he has ratcheted up pressure on aides in recent weeks, even though he doesn’t always engage with the substance of issues.”

Playbook: “Washington has always been a place for people with sharp elbows. The old saying ‘Politics ain’t beanbag‘ is apt and accurate. The difference: it was done behind closed doors. Trump insiders seem to revel in the credit they get for knifing whoever is on the outs with Trump. Crowing about shoving people under the bus seems more prevalent than ever.”

“There have been a lot of pieces about how the Trump administration and the various players who have come to Washington have impacted D.C. Cache now comes from hanging out at the Trump Hotel and the stock of pubs like Breitbart has soared as the White House looks to leak info to sympathetic reporters. But the most stunning example of a pervasive culture shift in the past several weeks has been the overt campaign by conservative operatives and factions in the West Wing to take out National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. Lots of people have told us unflattering and sordid details of people’s lives that may, or may not be true. But the steady drumbeat of personal attacks against aides in this White House is stunning.”

Michael Gerson: “One of the difficult but primary duties of the modern presidency is to speak for the nation in times of tragedy. A space shuttle explodes. An elementary school is attacked. The twin towers come down in a heap of ash and twisted steel. It falls to the president to express something of the nation’s soul — grief for the lost, sympathy for the suffering, moral clarity in the midst of confusion, confidence in the unknowable purposes of God.”

“Not every president does this equally well. But none have been incapable. Until Donald Trump.”

“Trump’s reaction to events in Charlottesville was alternately trite (‘come together as one’), infantile (‘very, very sad’) and meaningless (‘we want to study it’).”