Leftmedia Still Propagating the Fake News Trump — Charlottesville Narrative
Revisiting Trump’s comments after Charlottesville because the Left won’t acknowledge the truth.
In the aftermath of the recent mass murder in New Zealand, predictably, leftist politicos like Sen. Richard “Stolen Valor” Blumenthal (D-CT), and Leftmedia outlets like CNN, endeavored to link the assault to Donald Trump. They insist his “failure to condemn racists” after the Charlottesville murder in August 2017 proves he sympathizes with them.
The fake news narrative is that Trump called the racists “very fine people.”
For the record, let’s debunk that lie and restate exactly what President Trump actually said.
Assessing the violence, Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas noted, “Other groups [opposing the racist factions] began amassing along the street and in the park. Gradually, the crowd sizes increased along with aggressiveness and hostility of attendees toward one another. … We did have mutually combating individuals in the crowd.”
This mutual violence was evident to everyone present, and it was affirmed in real time by New York Times reporter Hawes Spencer, who observed, “Protesters maced each other, threw water bottles and urine balloons — some of which hit reporters — and generally beat the crap out of each other with flagpoles.” At least NBC and BBC reporters showed enough integrity to report the violence on both sides.
After concurring with the police chief and other observers about “mutually combating individuals,” Trump said, “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides. On many sides. No matter our color, creed, religion, or political party we are all Americans first.”
A day later, after Leftmedia complaints Trump had not been clear, the White House communications staff followed up: “The President said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred and of course that includes white Supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups. He called for national unity and bringing all Americans together.”
But that was insufficient for the Democrats and their Leftmedia. Their goal was to elevate the conflict to the level that best serves the Demo agenda and the MSM’s ability to cash in on the chaos with ad revenue.
So the next day at a press conference, Trump again repeatedly condemned the racists in what was to be a unifying speech.
When a reporter complained that Trump “said there was hatred, there was violence on both sides,” the president responded correctly, “Yes, I think there’s blame on both sides.”
When a reporter then said, “The neo-Nazis started this,” Trump responded, “You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. … I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.”
When another reporter then questioned: “Who are the good people, sir? I just didn’t understand what you were saying. You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?”
Trump replied, “No. No. There were people in that rally … there were people protesting [the city] very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. … The following day it looked like they had some rough, bad people — neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them. But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest, and very legally protest.”
Again, Trump made it very clear he was not calling neo-Nazis and white nationalists “very fine people,” and declared “They should be condemned totally.” When asked in a follow up question if he was referring to them as fine people, he reiterated, “No. No.”
But Democrats and the Leftmedia pitched that as too little too late. Fact is, there is nothing Trump could have said that would be sufficient for Democrats and their Leftmedia, because fomenting racial division — division of any kind — is the foundation of their political domain.
So, I guess we will have to clarify this every time there is a racially motivated assault somewhere in the world.
Got it?