U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday returned to his original response to racist violence in the Virginia town of Charlottesville last week, by suggesting moral parity between white supremacist groups and those oppose their agenda, yet again on Tuesday.
On Monday, the President had condemned white nationalists by name after his first, ambiguous statement triggered an outrage in mainstream media.
“And you had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent. And nobody wants to say that. But I’ll say it right now,” the President said during a combative interaction with the media in New York, referring to the white supremacist groups as one side and the counter-protestors as the other. “But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides,” the President said.
Mr. Trump said the moves to take out memorials of defenders of slavery and racism could lead to demands of taking down statues of the country’s founding fathers such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, who were themselves slave owners, trying to merge notions of American nationalism and white nationalism.
“So this week, it is Robert E. Lee. 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 know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?,” the President said, referring to two confederate generals who wanted to secede and protect slavery and two former Presidents, revered icons of American history.
The violence in Charlottesville was the outcome of a protest called by nationalist groups against the city council’s decision to remove the statue of confederate general Robert E. Lee from a city park. One person was killed and 19 injured when a 20-year old allegedly rammed his car into a group of counter-protestors.
The President said all those protesting against the removal of the statue were not white nationalists or neo-Nazis. “I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. 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…But, many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” the President said. The statue was erected in 1924 to assert the past of white supremacy.
Mr. Trump also refused to categorically call the murder of 32-year-old Heather Hyer an act of terrorism. “You can call it terrorism. You can call it murder. You can call it whatever you want. I would just call it as the fastest one to come up with a good verdict. There is a question. Is it murder? Is it terrorism? Then you get into legal semantics. The driver of the car is a murderer. What he did was a horrible, horrible, inexcusable thing,” the President said, in stark contrast with his style of routinely talking about “radical Islamic terrorism.” He has accused former President Barack Obama and his election opponent Hillary Clinton of not calling “evil by it name.”
