Trump pivots back to blame ‘both sides’ for Virginia melee

Bloomberg

A day after belatedly faulting white supremacists for deadly clashes in Virginia, President Donald Trump returned to his controversial position that there was “blame on both sides” for the weekend violence — remarks that caught his own aides off-guard.
“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,” Trump told reporters in New York on Tuesday. He added that liberal counter-protesters “came violently attacking the other group.”
Trump has faced intense criticism from business leaders and lawmakers in both parties for saying August 12 that “many sides” bore blame for melees that erupted in Charlottesville. He waited until Monday to respond to that backlash by reading a prepared statement: “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.”
Trump came to the lectern on Tuesday with a copy of his Saturday remarks and aides expected him to use his prior words to make the case that he had called out bigotry from the outset, said two people familiar with preparations. Instead, Trump offered his unfiltered vision of the incidents, catching aides by surprise and dismaying some of his staff.
“What about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt?” the president said in the lobby of Trump Tower. He said “alt-left” protesters were “very very violent” when they confronted the white supremacist and Nazi groups in Charlottesville. He added that some of those marching alongside white nationalists were not racists.

‘GEORGE WASHINGTON’
“Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Trump said, arguing that civil-rights activists offended by Confederate monuments might turn next on heroes of the American Revolution. “This week, it is Robert E. Lee and this week, Stonewall Jackson. Is it George Washington next? You have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”
House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin distanced himself from Trump’s latest remarks, though he avoided criticizing the president in a statement released via Twitter. “We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for. There can be no moral ambiguity,” Ryan said.
Within hours, the White House blasted out talking points, asking Republican lawmakers to defend Trump’s remarks as “entirely correct” and argue that the media “reacted with hysteria,” according to a copy obtained by Bloomberg News.
The violence erupted as white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville over the weekend to protest the city’s decision to remove a statue of Lee, a Confederate general in the Civil War, from a public park. One woman was killed and at least 19 others were injured after an Ohio man allegedly rammed a group of counter-demonstrators with a vehicle, and two Virginia state troopers who were observing the demonstrations died in a helicopter crash nearby.
TORCH-WIELDING PROTESTERS
Trump described as quiet an initial demonstration by white nationalists on the night of Aug. 11 — when torch-wielding protesters marched on the campus of the University of Virginia and performed Nazi salutes. “I looked the night before, if you look, there were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee,” Trump said. As the president delivered his remarks following an announcement on US infrastructure, his new chief of staff, retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, stood quietly with his arms crossed and stared down at the floor.
In a briefing afterward, Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, demurred when asked whether he and other officials shared the president’s views on the protest. “We share the president’s view that infrastructure is really important to America, and our infrastructure is crumbling,” Cohn said.