(JTA) — President Trump reverted to blaming left-wing counterprotesters as well as white supremacists for the violence that erupted at a far-right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
In startling, off-the-cuff comments at a press conference Tuesday, the president appeared to backtrack from his statement Monday that explicitly condemned neo-Nazis and white supremacists for the violence on Saturday. On the day of the rally, Trump’s initial statement condemned “hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides, on many sides,” a statement that shocked members of both parties for neglecting to call out white supremacists.
On Tuesday, Trump called out “the left, that came violently attacking the other group.”
“I think there’s blame on both sides,” Trump said at the news conference Tuesday in New York. “What about the alt-left that, as you say, came charging at the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?”
The “Unite the Right” rally Saturday saw hundreds of people on America’s racist fringe converge in defense of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and brawl with counterprotesters. After the rally was dispersed by police, a white supremacist, James Fields, rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one woman and injuring at least 19. Two police officers also died when their helicopter crashed while monitoring the rally.
Attendees at the rally waved Nazi and Confederate flags, and shouted anti-Semitic and racist chants, in addition to giving Nazi salutes. But Trump said at the press conference that not all of the attendees were white supremacists.
“I’ve condemned neo-Nazis,” he said. “I’ve condemned many different groups. but not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee.”
The president also appeared to equate Confederate generals with the founding fathers in questioning the drive to remove statues and other symbols of the Confederacy. He noted that George Washington owned slaves.
“This week it’s Robert E. Lee,” he said. “I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You really have to ask yourself, where does it stop? George Washington was a slave-owner.”
David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, thanked Trump on Twitter “for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa,” references to the Black Lives Matter movement and Antifa, a loose movement that combats white supremacists, sometimes violently.
But Congressional leaders shot back at Trump’s comments, calling for an unequivocal condemnation of white supremacists. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, a Republican, called white supremacy “repulsive” while Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, criticized Trump for sowing division in America.
Top photo: President Donald Trump giving a statement on the violence this past weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia at the White House, Aug. 14, 2017. (Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images)
Also see:
- Jmore’s publisher Scott Rifkin on President Trump’s response
- Michael Olesker’s take on President Trump’s unwillingness to denounce white supremacists
- Baltimore Fishbowl: City Removes its Four Confederate Monuments Overnight
- Baltimore Fishbowl: How Many Hate Groups Have Put Down Roots in Maryland?
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