‘What about the alt-left’: Trump again blames ‘both sides’ for deadly violence in Virginia
Former leader of Ku Klux Klan applauds Trump for his ‘courage’
Combative and insistent, President Donald Trump declared anew on Tuesday “there is blame on both sides” for the deadly violence last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, appearing to once again equate the actions of white supremacist groups and those protesting them.
The president’s comments effectively wiped away the more conventional statement he delivered at the White House a day earlier when he branded members of the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as “criminals and thugs.”
Trump’s advisers had hoped those remarks might quell a crush of criticism from both Republicans and Democrats. But the president’s retorts on Tuesday suggested he had been a reluctant participant in that clean-up effort.
During an impromptu press conference in the lobby of his Manhattan skyscraper, he praised his original response to the Charlottesville clashes and angrily blamed liberal groups in addition to white supremacists for the violence. Some of those protesting the rally to save a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee were “also very violent,” he said.
“There are two sides to a story,” he said. He added that some facts about the violence still aren’t known.
Trump’s core supporters have sought to blame Black Lives Matters activists and anti-fascist protesters known by the far-right as “antifa,” for the violence, and Trump delivered with relish.