And on the third day, Donald Trump got around to condemning white supremacist hate groups. Three days after white supremacists, including outright Nazis, marched on Charlottesville, Virginia, and two days after a white supremacist drove a car at high speed into a crowd of anti-racist counter-protesters, killing one, Trump appeared at the White House to make a statement. Specifically, to make a statement to undo some of the damage from his earlier statement blaming “many sides” for violence. A day after the White House continued to refuse to condemn white supremacists, public pressure apparently grew too great.
Trump led off by talking about tax cuts and trade deals and taking credit for the strength of the economy, striking an off note before moving on to trying to sound presidential and concerned about racism.
“The Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the deadly car attack that killed one innocent American and wounded 20 others,” Trump announced. “As I said on Saturday we condemn in the strongest possible terms, this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America.” Except that’s not exactly what he said on Saturday.
In the middle of a lot of very un-Trumpian talk about love and equality, he finally got around to saying that “Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, Including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”
“Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America,” Trump said, going on to say that Heather Heyer’s “death fills us with grief” and also remembering the two Virginia police killed in a helicopter crash as they monitored the protests.
Way too little, way too late.
Monday, Aug 14, 2017 · 4:58:20 PM +00:00
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Laura Clawson
CNN reports that "according to WH sources" Trump "insisted” on adding that opening about the economy. Which tells you something about how interested Trump was in standing up there and talking about racist violence being bad. (Not interested at all.)