US President Donald Trump says counter‑protesters at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia acted violently and should share the blame for the mayhem that left a woman dead and many injured.
Speaking at Trump Tower in Manhattan, the president called the events of Sunday at the "Unite the Right" rally a "horrible thing to watch," but he emphasised that both sides acted irresponsibly.
Donald Trump said that protesters on the political left violently attacked white nationalists rallying against a decision to remove a Confederate statue.
Trump's remarks came a day after he belatedly condemned the Ku Klux Klan, neo‑Nazis and other hate groups that organised and participated in the rally.
Trump emphasised repeatedly that he believed many of the "Unite the Right" rally participants were not members of hate groups and were there to protest the pending removal by the city of a statue of the Confederate general Robert E Lee.
Speaking rhetorically, Trump asked reporters whether George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, both slave owners, should suffer the same fate and have their statues removed.
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