Bowing to pressure from right and left, President Donald Trump condemned white supremacist groups by name on Monday, declaring “racism is evil” after two days of public equivocation and internal White House debate over the deadly race-fueled clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In a hastily arranged statement at the White House, Mr. Trump branded members of the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as “criminals and thugs.”

The groups are “repugnant to everything that we hold dear as Americans,” he said.

In his initial remarks on the violence on Saturday, Mr. Trump did not single out the groups and instead bemoaned violence on “many sides.” Those remarks prompted stern criticism from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, who urged him to seize the moral authority of his office to condemn hate groups.

Mr. Trump’s softer statement on Saturday had come as graphic images of a car plowing into a crowd in Charlottesville were playing continually on television. White nationalists had assembled in the city to protest plans to take down a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, and counter-protesters gathered in opposition. Fights broke out, and then a man drove into the opponents of the white supremacists. One woman was killed and many more badly hurt. Twenty-year-old James Alex Fields Jr. of Ohio is charged with second-degree murder and other counts.

Loath to appear to be admitting a mistake, Mr. Trump was reluctant to adjust his remarks.

The President had indicated to advisers before his initial statement on Saturday that he wanted to stress a need for law and order, which he did. He later expressed anger to those close to him about what he perceived as the media’s unfair assessment of his remarks, believing he had effectively denounced all forms of bigotry, according to outside advisers and White House officials.

Several of Mr. Trump’s senior advisers, including new chief of staff John Kelly, had urged him to make a more specific condemnation, warning that the negative story would not go away and that the rising tide of criticism from fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill could endanger his legislative agenda, according to two White House officials.

The outside advisers and officials demanded anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Aides were dispatched to Sunday talk shows but struggled to explain the President’s position. A stronger statement was released but attributed only to an unnamed spokesperson.

Tougher condemnations began on Sunday night with Vice President Mike Pence, traveling in South America, declaring that “these dangerous fringe groups have no place in American public life.”

On Monday, Mr. Trump had planned to interrupt his 17-day working vacation at his New Jersey golf club to travel to Washington for an announcement he hoped would showcase some tough talk on China’s trade practices.

But by the time he arrived at midmorning, it was clear all other messages would be drowned out until he said more about Charlottesville.

Mr. Trump returned to a White House undergoing a major renovation. With the Oval Office unavailable, he worked from the Treaty Room as aides drafted his remarks.

Reading from a teleprompter, he made a point of beginning with an unrelated plug for the strength of the economy under his leadership. Then, taking pains to insist “as I said on Saturday,” Mr. Trump denounced the hate groups and called for unity.

“We must love each other, show affection for each other and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry and violence,” he said.

Mr. Trump for the first time mentioned Heather Heyer by name as he paid tribute to the woman killed by the car.

At the trade event later in the day, he was asked why it took two days for him to offer an explicit denunciation of the hate groups.

“They have been condemned,” Mr. Trump responded before offering a fresh criticism of some media as “fake news.”

Mr. Trump noted the Justice Department has opened a civil rights investigation.

In the hours after the incident on Saturday, Mr. Trump addressed the violence in broad strokes, saying he condemned “in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.”

That was met with swift bipartisan criticism. There were far fewer responses to Mr. Trump’s statement on Monday, though Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a frequent Trump critic, tweeted “Well done Mr. President.”

Mr. Trump’s initial comments had drawn praise from the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, which wrote- “Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us. … No condemnation at all.”

Though the Daily Stormer did not criticize Mr. Trump’s new statement, the Occidental Dissent, a white nationalist website, published a message saying whites had been “deserted by their President.”

Mr. Trump, as a presidential candidate, frequently came under scrutiny for being slow to offer condemnation of white supremacists. His strongest denunciations of the movement have not come only when asked, and he occasionally trafficked in retweets of racist social media posts during his campaign. His chief strategist, Steve Bannon, once declared that his former news site, Breitbart, was “the platform for the alt-right.”

Only late in last year’s campaign did Mr. Trump move away from his long-held questioning that Barack Obama was born in the United States, and even then he falsely blamed the origins of “birtherism” on Hillary Clinton.

Early Monday, the CEO of the nation’s third largest pharmaceutical company said he was resigning from the President’s American Manufacturing Council, citing “a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.”

Mr. Trump lashed back at Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier on Twitter, saying Mr. Frazier “will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES!”

Monday night, the CEO of athletic wear manufacturer Under Armour also resigned from the panel, saying his company “engages in innovation and sports, not politics.” Kevin Plank did not specifically mention Mr. Trump or Charlottesville, but said his company will focus on promoting “unity, diversity and inclusion” through sports.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich followed, writing that while he had urged leaders to condemn “white supremacists and their ilk,” many in Washington “seem more concerned with attacking anyone who disagrees with them.”

North Korea said on Tuesday that its military presented leader Kim Jong Un with plans to launch intermediate-range missiles into waters near Guam and “wring the windpipes of the Yankees” by creating “enveloping fire” near the key U.S. military hub in the Pacific.

The comments, while typically belligerent, are significant because they also appeared to signal a path to defuse a deepening crisis with Washington over a weapons program that is seen as nearing the ability to accurately send a nuclear missile to the U.S. mainland.

During an inspection of the army’s Strategic Forces, which handles the missile program, Mr. Kim praised the military for drawing up a “close and careful plan” and said he would watch the “foolish and stupid conduct of the Yankees” a little more before deciding whether to order the missile test, the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said. Kim appeared in photos sitting at a table with a large map marked by a straight line between what appeared to be northeastern North Korea and Guam, and passing over Japan apparently showing the missiles’ flight route.

The missile plans were previously announced, and Mr. Kim said North Korea would conduct the launches if the “Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions on the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity” and that the United States should “think reasonably and judge properly” to avoid shaming itself, the news agency said.

Lobbing missiles toward Guam would be a deeply provocative act from the U.S. perspective, and a miscalculation on either side could lead to a military clash. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the United Sates would take out any such missile seen to be heading for American soil and declared any such North Korean attack could mean war.

Mr. Kim’s comments, however, with their conditional tone, seemed to hold out the possibility that friction could ease if the United States made some sort of gesture that Pyongyang considered a move to back away from previous “extremely dangerous reckless actions.” This might be difficult as the United States and its ally South Korea plan next week to start annual defensive military drills that the North claims are preparation for invasion.

On Monday, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff met with senior South Korean military and political officials and the local media. Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford also made comments that appeared to be an attempt to ease anxiety over tit-for-tat threats between President Donald Trump and North Korea while also showing a willingness to back up Mr. Trump’s warnings if need be.

Gen. Dunford said the United States wants to peacefully resolve tensions with North Korea. But Washington is also ready to use the “full range” of its military capabilities in case of provocation, Gen. Dunford said.

Gen. Dunford is visiting South Korea, Japan and China after a week in which Mr. Trump declared the U.S. military “locked and loaded” and said he was ready to unleash “fire and fury” if North Korea continued to threaten the United States.

The Korean People’s Army’s Strategic Forces said last week that it would finalize and send to Mr. Kim for approval the plan to fire four ballistic missiles near Guam, which is about 3,200 km (2,000 miles) from Pyongyang.

The plans are based on the Hwasong-12, a new missile the country successfully flight-tested for the first time in May. The liquid-fuel missile is designed to be fired from road mobile launchers and has been previously described by North Korea as built for attacking Alaska and Hawaii.

The North followed the May launch with two flight tests of its Hwasong-14 ICBM last month. Analysts said that a wide swath of the continental United States, including Los Angeles and Chicago, could be within reach of those missiles, once they’re perfected.

The North’s latest report said Mr. Kim ordered his military to be prepared to launch the missiles toward Guam at any time. If the “planned fire of power demonstration” is carried out because of U.S. recklessness, Mr. Kim said it will be “the most delightful historic moment when the Hwasong artillerymen will wring the windpipes of the Yankees and point daggers at their necks,” the North reported.

North Korea is angry about new United Nations sanctions over its expanding nuclear weapons and missile program and the upcoming military drills between Washington and Seoul.

Mr. Kim said that the United States must “make a proper option first and show it through action, as it committed provocations after introducing huge nuclear strategic equipment into the vicinity of the peninsula” and that it “should stop at once arrogant provocations” against North Korea, state media said.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday called for a peaceful solution to the nuclear standoff, saying that “there must not be another war on the Korean Peninsula,” according to his office.

In a meeting with top aides at the presidential Blue House, Mr. Moon said South Korea would work to safeguard peace on the peninsula in cooperation with the United States and other countries. Mr. Moon said North Korea must stop issuing menacing statements and provocations.