Trump says ‘alt-left’ acted equally violent in Virginia
President under bipartisan fire for blaming ‘both sides’
President Trump argued Tuesday that left-wing groups were just as violent as the white supremacists who staged a demonstration in Charlottesville, Va. The remarks set off a firestorm of criticism from members of both political parties.
A day after Trump sought to tamp down controversy by condemning white supremacists for their role in the Virginia violence, the president echoed his initial response that many sides were to blame.
“What about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, alt-right?” Trump said. “Do they have any semblance of guilt? What about the fact they came charging with clubs in their hands?”
Trump said he couldn’t condemn white supremacists and other hate groups earlier “because I didn’t know all the facts” about an alleged white nationalist accused of crashing a car into a crowd, killing one person and wounded 19 others.
“I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct,” Trump said from Trump Tower in New York after an event otherwise devoted to a new executive order on infrastructure.
Trump’s comments drew attacks from lawmakers who said he again equated white supremacists with their opponents.
“There is only one side to be on when a white supremacist mob brutalizes and murders in America,” said House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
“We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, RFla., tweeted, “Blaming ‘both sides’ for #Charlottesville?! No. Back to relativism when dealing with KKK, Nazi sympathizers, white supremacists? Just no.”
Another Republican, Rep. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, said Trump “must stop the moral equivalency! AGAIN.”
Over the weekend, Trump faced criticism for chiding “many sides” for the violence in Charlottesville on Saturday.
Monday, Trump condemned the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists and announced the Justice Department would open a civil rights investigation into the driver of the car that killed Charlottesville resident Heather Heyer.
Tuesday, he called his initial response a “fine statement” and blamed the news media for being dishonest in its coverage.
“There was no way of making a correct statement that early,” he said. “I had to see the facts. Unlike a lot of reporters — I didn’t know (prominent white supremacist) David Duke was there. I wanted to see the facts.”
Former KKK leader Duke tweeted a thank-you to the president after his statement Tuesday — for condemning “the leftist terrorists” in Black Lives Matter and the anti-fascist movement Antifa.
Trump said “not all of those people” who attended the demonstration in Charlottesville were racist or neo-Nazi but wanted only to protest the city’s plans to remove the Robert E. Lee statue.
That statement also drew catcalls from Republicans. “If you’re showing up to a Klan rally, you’re probably a racist or a bigot,” Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, said on CNN.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted that “the organizers of events” that led to the Charlottesville attack “are 100% to blame.”
The president was expected to discuss only infrastructure dur- ing his news conference. He signed an executive order on infrastructure intended to streamline the permitting process. But when he took questions from reporters, most of them were about Charlottesville.
He questioned moves by local government to remove Confederate monuments from public places. He wondered whether tributes to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are at risk because they were slave owners: “You really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?” He said local governments were free to make their own decisions.
He refused to say whether he thought the “alt-left” were as bad as the white supremacists who organized a demonstration in defense of the Robert E. Lee statue. “You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent,” Trump said.
He gave a terse reply to a question about why self-proclaimed Nazis say they support him. “They don’t,” he responded.
He said he had a plan to bridge the nation’s racial divide: Create more, and better, jobs.
The news conference capped a day in which Trump returned to his residence in the gold-leaf comfort of Trump Tower for the first time since he took office in January — but it wasn’t a particularly joyful homecoming.
Late Monday night, his motorcade passed throngs of protesters on Fifth Avenue chanting, “New York hates you” and “Black Lives Matter.”
In the gray marble and gold-mirrored lobby of his famed tower, shoppers and tourists, having passed through metal detectors at the Fifth Avenue entrance, milled with Secret Secret agents and other law enforcement officials keeping ever-watchful eyes on the proceedings.
Reporters remained in a small pen bordered by velvet ropes.
“I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct.” President Trump