Trump: Fault ‘on both sides’ in racial violence
US president says ‘fine people’ on both ‘alt-left’ and ‘alt-right’ sides of protests in Charlottesville
Donald Trump last night insisted there was “blame on both sides” for the violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville over the weekend that left one woman dead and several injured. The US president reverted to his initial response to the clashes, which had been widely criticised across mainstream politics. He maintained, during a combative press conference, that left-wing supporters had to take some responsibility for charging at the “alt-right”.
DONALD TRUMP has raised the stakes in his response to the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, claiming last night that both sides were “very violent”.
The US president said there were some “very fine” people on both sides of the protests over the weekend, in which neo-nazis clashed with anti-racism demonstrators leaving one woman dead and several injured.
Mr Trump claimed the “alt-left” bears some responsibility for the violence and refused to condemn the “altright” activists.
“You had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent,” he said. “No one wants to say that, but I’ll say it right now: you had a group on the other side that came charging in without a permit and they were very, very violent.”
“They came at each other with clubs … it was a horrible thing to watch.”
Hundreds of white nationalists converged in Virginia over the weekend to protest at plans to remove a statue of General Robert E Lee, commander of the pro-slavery Confederate army in the US civil war.
They were met by crowds of antiracism demonstrators. As the tension escalated into violent clashes, James Fields, a suspected Nazi sympathiser, ploughed his car into a group of the counter-protesters, killing a young woman and injuring 19 other people.
Last night, Mr Trump described Fields as a “disgrace to himself, his family and this country”.
The president had been criticised on both sides of the political spectrum for his initial comments on Saturday in which he blamed “many sides” for the violence, but on Monday he explicitly condemned right-wing racist elements. That position apparently changed again yesterday.
He defended himself against the charge that he had failed to condemn Nazi and white supremacist groups saying that “there are two sides to a story” and that some of the facts about the violence are not yet clear. Referring to the campaign against Confederateera monuments to civil-war leaders such as Lee, Mr Trump asked whether statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were the next to be targeted. “Many of those people were there to protest [at] the taking down of the statue of Robert E Lee,” he said.
“This week, it is Lee and this week, Stonewall Jackson. Is it George Washington next week and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?”
The president sympathised with the protesters who opposed removing the Lee statue, but offered no equivalent remarks for those campaigning for its removal. “You had people in that group … that were there to protest the taking down of a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E Lee to another name,” he said.
The remarks were welcomed by David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, who tweeted: “Thank you president Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists.”
However, Mr Trump’s business advisory council was hit by its fifth resignation in three days over his handling of the Charlottesville riots. Only eight people now remain on the board.
After the press conference Richard Trumka, president of the largest federation of labour unions in the US, the AFLCIO, said in a statement: “We cannot sit on a council for a president who tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism.”
Last night, Doug Mcmillon, the chief executive of Walmart, said the president “missed a critical opportunity to help bring our country together”.