Axios

Sen. Marco Rubio issued a statement via Twitter on Tuesday denouncing President Trump's repeated statements that "many sides" were responsible for this weekend's violence in Charlottesville during his press conference this afternoon, telling Trump that spreading the blame for the events would allow white supremacists to count it "as a win."

President Trump equivocated George Washington and Thomas Jefferson with Confederate leaders like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson due to the former presidents' slave ownership.

Worth noting: Right-wing pundit Laura Ingraham appeared on Fox & Friends — one of the staples of Trump's media diet — this morning, making a similar point by wondering when "the Communist Party of the United States" might march on Washington and Jefferson's homes at Mount Vernon and Monticello.

When asked about whether Trump agrees with Doug McMillon, Wal-Mart's CEO, that he "missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together," after the "Unite the Right" rally violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump deflected and answered with statistics about the economy.

Why it matters: This is a time when most people — Trump-base or not — look to the president for reassurance and leadership in some form, but Trump just shed his presidential responsibility to unite America. And keep in mind, the whole reason reporters are asking the question about unity in the first place is due to white supremacist rallies and counter protests showing very clearly there is a lack of unity in America right now.

McMillon's statement comes amid a series of CEO departures from Trump's special councils, one of which McMillon is a member of, and Trump hit back today saying they're leaving due to "embarrassment."

Trump told reporters after he announced an infrastructure executive order that he thinks the CEO's are "not taking their jobs seriously as it pertains to this country," noting, "they're leaving out of embarrassment." Trump's referring to all the CEOs who have departed his manufacturing council.

He jabbed at where their jobs are located: "Take a look at where their product is made it's outside of the country…they're leaving out of embarrassment…I've been lecturing them, about 'you have to bring it back to this country.'"

The UK signaled in government policy papers published Tuesday that it wishes to continue its close customs union with the European Union during the estimated three-year transition period following Britain's planned exit in March 2019, per the Financial Times. The EU response:

• Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament's lead coordinator on Brexit, tweeted: "To be in & out of the Customs Union & 'invisible borders' is a fantasy. First need to secure citizens rights & a financial settlement."
• A spokesman for the European commission: "We take note of the UK's request... but we will only address them once we have made sufficient progress on the terms of the orderly withdrawal... We see the UK's publication of a series of position papers as a positive step towards now really starting phase one of the negotiations."
• Michel Barnier, the European Chief Negotiator for Brexit, on Twitter: "The quicker #UK & EU27 agree on citizens, settling accounts and #Ireland, the quicker we can discuss customs & future relationship."

Gideon Rose, editor of Foreign Affairs, introduces a cover package, "Trump and the Allies":

• "The United States has dominated the world for generations now. Like a Carnegie or a Rockefeller or a Gates, it has legitimized its extraordinary position by making clear to all that it sees life as a positive-sum game — one in which American power is used to benefit not just Americans but also all those around the world willing to play by the rules, living and trading peacefully with one another."
• "U.S. allies know that better than anybody, which is why they signed on to the [postwar liberal international] order in the first place. Unfortunately,Washington itself seems to have forgotten."
• See reports from leading experts on France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Canada and Mexico.

"Bannon in Limbo as President Is Urged to Oust Lightning Rod," from the N.Y. Times' Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush:

• "Rupert Murdoch has repeatedly urged President Trump to fire him."
• "Bannon, 63, has told people in his orbit that he never expected to last in his current position longer than eight months to a year."
• "At a recent dinner at the White House with [Jared] Kushner and [chief of staff John] Kelly... the president listened while... Murdoch... said Mr. Bannon had to go."
• "Trump offered little pushback... and vented his frustrations about Mr. Bannon."

Sound smart: Trump is rightly worried Bannon would instantly start the kind of alt-right media machine the president himself dreamed of building if he had lost. Bannon sees himself as the de facto leader of America First, something he believes in far more powerfully than Trump does. Bannon + media empire could = trouble for Trump White House and GOP.

Intel said Monday that CEO Brian Krzanich was leaving President Trump's American Manufacturing Council, the latest executive to distance himself from the president following the weekend's events in Virginia.

• In a blog post, Krzanich said that the decline in American manufacturing remains a serious issue, but said that "politics and political agendas have sidelined the important mission of rebuilding America's manufacturing base."
• "I resigned to call attention to the serious harm our divided political climate is causing to critical issues, including the serious need to address the decline of American manufacturing," Krzanich said in a blog post. "Politics and political agendas have sidelined the important mission of rebuilding America's manufacturing base."
• Go deeper: A number of CEOs have dropped out of Trump's presidential councils, including Elon Musk and Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank.

North Korean state media reports that Kim Jong Un is backing off from his threat to launch missiles at Guam, a U.S. territory, per the WSJ. He decided to call it off after he visited a military command post and looked over a military plan his senior officers presented him.

Get smart: Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, a visiting clinical assistant professor of Global Affairs within the NYU SPS Center for Global Affairs who's an expert on North Korea, told Axios earlier today that he didn't expect North Korea to follow through on Guam because North Koreans are the "masters of evoking threats. They're trying to match Trump word for word."

This comes after a tension-filled week in which Trump said he would rain down "fire and fury" on North Korea if it threatened the U.S. again and in which the North threatened to launch missiles at Guam.

What to watch: Kim could change his mind "if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions,” North Korean state media warned.