Trump defends response to Charlottesville violence, says he put it 'perfectly' with 'both sides' remark
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump defended his widely criticized comments that there were fine people on "both sides" of the violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, saying the utterance was put "perfectly."
"If you look at what I said, you will see that that question was answered perfectly," he told reporters outside the White House on Friday. "I was talking about people who went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general.”
The violence in Charlottesville erupted after counter-protesters clashed with white nationalists and others who were part of the Unite the Right rally. Those groups were protesting Charlottesville's decision to remove a statue of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee. The violence left one woman dead.
Trump's "both sides" comment prompted bipartisan outrage with many people viewing the wording as equating the actions of the white nationalists to those of the counter-protesters.
“It was not only morally ambiguous, it was equivocating,” then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, said at a CNN Town Hall, adding that Trump's comments were "wrong."
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"People there were protesting the taking down of the monument to Robert E. Lee. Everybody knows that," Trump told reporters.
The Charlottesville violence played a central role in new Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's campaign announcement video on Thursday. In the message, Biden attacked the president's reaction.
"Trump stunned the world and shocked the conscience of this nation. He said there were ‘some very fine people on both sides.’ Very fine people on both sides?"
With those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime."
Biden called Charlottesville "a defining moment for this nation in the last few years."
“We can't forget what happened in Charlottesville," he said. "Even more important, we have to remember who we are. This is America."
Asked if he still believed there were very fine people on both sides, Trump defended the demonstrators aggrieved at the removal of the Lee statue, and went on to praise the legacy of the Confederate general.
"Whether you like it or not, he was one of the great generals," he said.
Analysts said organizers called the march to support white supremacy, not to protest statute removal.
Trump "continues to use the bully pulpit of the presidency to provide cover for racist violence," said Nicole Hemmer, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
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Tim Miller, an anti-Trump Republican, said the president is trying to re-write the history on the Charlottesville event.
"The organizers spent the evening before the rally chanting 'Jews will not replace us' to clear up that this was a white supremacist gathering in case anyone was confused," Miller said. "Trump is using weasel words to defend these white supremacist marchers because he thinks they are his base supporters."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump defends response to Charlottesville violence, says he put it 'perfectly' with 'both sides' remark