Speaker Ryan on Charlottesville: 'There are no sides'

— -- House Speaker Paul Ryan spoke up forcefully in a Facebook post on Monday against the recent violence in Charlottesville and the death of Heather Heyer, the woman killed when a car plowed into a group of counter protestors.

“There are no sides,” Ryan wrote in an implicit critique of President Donald Trump, who was rebuked by Democrats and Republicans last week for blaming “both sides” for the violence between white supremacists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville.

“There is no other argument,” Ryan said in the post, which made no mention of Trump. “We will not tolerate this hateful ideology in our society.”

Ryan -- who called white supremacy “repulsive” in a statement after Trump’s freewheeling and contentious press conference last Tuesday at Trump Tower -- went on to decry neo-Nazis and their ideology.

“We all need to make clear there is no moral relativism when it comes to neo-Nazis,” Ryan said. “The notion that anyone is intrinsically superior to anyone else runs completely counter to our founding principles.”

Ryan said he was camping with his family last week during the protests in Charlottesville. “Our annual camping trip is the kind of time away we really cherish these days,” he said. “Of course, the escape was short-lived, jolted back to reality by what happened in Charlottesville.”

Ryan posted his reflection Monday morning ahead of a televised town hall with CNN in Racine, Wisconsin.