Trump comments please, anger, then please hate group leaders
White nationalists have been parsing President Donald Trump’s words since a deadly attack at a Virginia rally over the weekend. A day after the president called them “criminals and thugs,” some seemed quite pleased Tuesday when Trump angrily pivoted back to his initial response and spread out the blame.
Members of the Ku Klux Klan, white supremacists and neo-Nazis who supported Trump’s campaign and have felt emboldened by his presidency praised Trump’s initial reaction on Saturday, which blamed “many sides” for the violence. They were disheartened two days later, when Trump, facing immense bipartisan pressure, belatedly criticized their hate groups by name and called them “repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”
But by Tuesday evening, Trump flipped again.
Taking questions that had to be shouted in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, Trump praised his initial statement that had caused so much criticism, and angrily laid blame on liberal groups advocating for the removal of Confederate statues.