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Trump Refuses to Explicitly Condemn White Supremacist Violence

HeadlineAug 14, 2017

President Trump, however, refused to single out white supremacist violence.

President Donald Trump: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides—on many sides. It’s been going on for a long time in our country—not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. It’s been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America. What is vital now is a swift restoration of law and order and the protection of innocent lives.”

Trump’s comments sparked widespread outrage. A new White House statement on Sunday explicitly denounced the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups, but it was attributed to an unnamed spokesperson and not the president himself. Other members of the Trump administration have more explicitly condemned the violence. Trump’s national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, said the attack constituted terrorism.

Meanwhile, Lexington, Kentucky, Mayor Jim Gray says the city will remove two Confederate monuments from the former courthouse after the white supremacist violence in Virginia. After headlines, we’ll go to Charlottesville, Virginia, and spend the rest of the hour speaking with people who were there on Saturday, including a witness to the deadly attack, a nurse who treated the injured counterprotesters, a faith leader and more.

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