The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
– Obama tweet makes history –
Trump’s remarks — made at an impromptu press conference that was expected to focus on infrastructure reforms — put the white supremacists and counter-demonstrators on equal moral ground.
“I think there is blame on both sides,” Trump said, as his new chief of staff, former Marine general John Kelly, stood rigidly near him.
“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 continued.
“What about the alt-left that came charging… at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt? (…) There are two sides to a story.”
He also said there were “very fine people, on both sides.”
“Why are we surprised that a @POTUS, who began his campaign with appeals to bigotry, would give comfort to bigots?” said David Axelrod, a former top aide to Barack Obama.
Some observers noted that for years, Trump fomented a conspiracy theory with racial overtones that Obama was not born in the United States, before making an about-face at the end of his White House campaign.
Trump had suffered a first wave of indignation immediately after Saturday’s events, when critics said his comments were too vague and did not go far enough to denounce neo-Nazis and KKK members at the Charlottesville rally.
Obama, his predecessor, had reacted by tweeting a quote from Nelson Mandela: “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion.”
The tweet is now the most “liked” ever sent on the social network, Twitter said Wednesday.
In an editorial, The New York Times said Trump’s behavior “has become distressingly unsurprising.”
“Washington politicians had hoped the recent appointment of John Kelly, a retired Marine general, as his chief of staff would instill some discipline in his chaotic administration,” the paper said.
“But the root of the problem is not the personnel; it is the man at the top.”
