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   From: deeeo@sir.net   
      
   Trump tries to re-write his own history on Charlottesville and ‘both   
   sides’   
      
      
   April 26, 2019 at 10:27 a.m. EDT   
      
   Kyle Griffin   
   ?   
   @kylegriffin1   
   Trump tries to defend his Charlottesville response by praising Robert E.   
   Lee.   
      
   He claims the 'very fine people' remark was about people who "felt very   
   strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee. A great general, whether you   
   like it or not."   
   Via Politico   
      
   Embedded video   
   1,441   
   9:05 AM - Apr 26, 2019   
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   This post has been updated.   
      
   Joe Biden’s presidential launch has again cast a spotlight on President   
   Trump’s comments about the 2017 tragedy in Charlottesville. And in doing   
   so, it has unearthed a surprising amount of revisionist history from   
   Trump’s supporters.   
      
   And now from Trump himself, too.   
      
   In his announcement video, Biden prominently featured scenes from the   
   August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally that resulted in an avowed neo-Nazi   
   killing a woman and injuring dozens of other by driving into a crowd of   
   counterprotesters. Trump would soon condemn what happened “on many sides”   
   and later argue there were “very fine people on both sides” of the scenes   
   that weekend.   
      
   That led to an instant backlash, including by some in the White House, who   
   felt Trump was downplaying the racism on display on that tragic day.   
      
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   But some Trump supporters — and now Trump himself — have argued that he   
   was taken out of context. They say he wasn’t referring to neo-Nazis, white   
   supremacists and white nationalists when he referred to “very fine people”   
   on both sides, but rather some other people who shared their cause of   
   saving a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.   
      
   “If you look at what I said, you will see that that question was answered   
   perfectly,” Trump said Friday. “I was talking about people that went   
   because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee — a   
   great general, whether you like it or not."   
      
   The argument makes little sense when you consider the facts on the ground,   
   and it ignores Trump’s regular use of dog whistles.   
      
   Let’s recap what happened.   
      
   After the death of Heather Heyer, Trump on Aug. 12 condemned “in the   
   strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and   
   violence — on many sides.” He then repeated “on many sides,” apparently   
   emphasizing that the counterprotesters (which included many who were   
   peaceful and some who weren’t) needed to be condemned, as well.   
      
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   After an outcry, Trump on Aug. 13 offered a more forceful denunciation of   
   the white supremacists, neo-Nazis and white nationalists who had rallied   
   in Charlottesville. But then, on Aug. 15, he again returned to the “both   
   sides” commentary, saying there was both “blame” and “very fine people” on   
   each side that day.   
      
   Contained in that third set of comments is a quote that Trump supporters,   
   including Trump surrogate Steve Cortes and Breitbart News, have argued is   
   exculpatory, They note that Trump, at one point, explicitly excluded neo-   
   Nazis and white nationalists from his “very fine people” formulation.   
      
   Here’s a brief transcript (key parts bolded):   
      
   REPORTER: You said there was hatred and violence on both sides —   
   TRUMP: Well, I do think there’s blame, yes, I think there’s blame on both   
   sides. You look at both sides. I think there’s blame on both sides. And I   
   have no doubt about it. And you don’t have any doubt about it either. And,   
   and if you reported it accurately, you would say it.   
   [CROSSTALK]   
   TRUMP: Excuse me. You had some very bad people in that group. But you also   
   had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in   
   that group, excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures as you did. You   
   had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to   
   them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park, from   
   Robert E. Lee to another name.   
   George Washington was a slave-owner. Was George Washington a slave-owner?   
   So will George Washington now lose his status — are we going to take down   
   — excuse me. Are we going to take down statues of George Washington? How   
   'bout Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like   
   him? Ok, good. Are we going to take down the statue because he was a major   
   slave-owner? Now we’re going to take down his statue. So you know what,   
   it’s fine. You’re changing history, you’re changing culture. And you had   
   people, and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis or the white nationalists   
   because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that   
   group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, ok? And the press has   
   treated them absolutely unfairly.   
   As you can see, Trump does say those groups should be “condemned totally.”   
   This is the basis for what some call the “Charlottesville hoax.”   
      
   But it leads to the question: Which “very fine people” was he talking   
   about? The “Unite the Right” rally was partly organized by a well-known   
   white nationalist, Richard Spencer, and included both neo-Nazis and white   
   supremacist groups. Former Ku Klux Klan head David Duke was a scheduled   
   speaker. The cause they were protesting — the removal of Lee’s statue — is   
   one supported by many nonwhite supremacists and nonwhite nationalists, but   
   this rally was clearly not one for your average supporter of Confederate   
   monuments.   
      
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   And indeed, if you look at what Trump says next, it seems that he totally   
   misconstrues who was actually protesting in Charlottesville. Here’s the   
   next part:   
      
   REPORTER: You said the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?   
   TRUMP: No. There were people in that rally, and I looked the night before,   
   if you look, they were people protesting very quietly the taking down of   
   the statue of Robert E. Lee. I’m sure in that group there were some bad   
   ones. 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. Because I don’t know if you know, they had a permit.   
   The other group didn’t have a permit. So I only tell you this, there are   
   two sides to a story. I thought what took place was a horrible moment for   
   our country. A horrible moment. But there are two sides.   
   There was indeed another protest the night before the deadly rally, but it   
   could hardly be described as “very quiet” or “fine people.” Here’s how The   
   Post described the scene:   
      
   At their Friday night rally at the University of Virginia, the white   
   nationalists brandished torches and chanted anti-Semitic and Nazi slogans,   
   including “blood and soil” (an English rendering of the Nazi “blut und   
   boden”) and “Jews will not replace us” — all crafted to cast Jews as   
   foreign interlopers who need to be expunged. The attendees proudly   
      
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