Trump faces widespread criticism after regressing on Charlottesville strife

US President Donald Trump is coming in for major criticism within his own Republican party after a fiery press conference at Trump Tower in which he blamed both sides for the unrest caused in Charlottesville last weekend.

Trump had initially come under fire for failing to explicitly condemn the white supremacists involved in the violence in the Virginia town that led to the death of a 32-year-old woman.

On Monday, Trump finally acknowledged and condemned the action of those groups before launching into an extraordinary return to his original stance on events - blaming both sides.

"You had a group on one side and group on the other and they came at each other with clubs – there is another side, you can call them the left, that came violently attacking the other group. You had people that were very fine people on both sides," Trump said.

"You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that, but I'll say it right now," he said.

Republicans lined up to denounce the actions of the far right groups and criticise Trump, some of whom did so by name and others did so in veiled comments.

Among those were former presidential nominees John McCain and Mitt Romney, the latter referring directly to Trump’s comments in the press conference, saying that "one side is racist, bigoted, Nazi. The other opposes racism and bigotry. Morally different universes."

Florida senator Marco Rubio also said Trump was wrong to offer any defence of the groups' actions at the weekend.

"Mr President, you can’t allow #WhiteSupremacists to share only part of blame. They support idea which cost nation & world so much pain," Rubio tweeted.

In a bad-tempered press conference at his New York property, Trump repeatedly clashed with reporters and bellowed his familiar 'fake' news battlecry, as several journalists launched stinging criticism of him.