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Trump stokes flames by spreading blame for Charlottesville bloodshed

President Donald Trump has poured petrol on a firestorm of race-related political division, backtracking on his previous condemnation of far-right groups for the deadly Charlottesville rally, and instead insisting both left and right-wing groups were at fault for the violence.

Aug 16, 2017, updated Aug 16, 2017
White House chief of staff John Kelly, left, watches on as President Donald Trump speaks to the media in the lobby of Trump Tower. Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

White House chief of staff John Kelly, left, watches on as President Donald Trump speaks to the media in the lobby of Trump Tower. Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

Trump had been sharply criticised for his initial comments blaming “many sides” for the violence in Charlottesville, but earlier this week had explicitly condemned right-wing racist elements.

However in a strident and heated exchange with reporters in the lobby of New York’s Trump Tower this morning, Australian time, the president claimed both sides were to blame in the clashes in Virginia over the weekend, adding that protesters on the political left violently attacked white nationalists rallying against a decision to remove a Confederate statue.

“They came at each other with clubs … it was a horrible thing to watch,” Trump said, returning to the theme of his initial response by saying left-wing protesters “came violently attacking the other group”.

“There are two sides to a story,” the President said.

Trump: "I think there's blame on both sides… you also had people that were very fine people on both sides." (via ABC) pic.twitter.com/nXoNXqo5yT

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 15, 2017

No, not the same. One side is racist, bigoted, Nazi. The other opposes racism and bigotry. Morally different universes.

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) August 16, 2017

There's no moral equivalency between racists & Americans standing up to defy hate& bigotry. The President of the United States should say so

— John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) August 16, 2017

.@realDonaldTrump, you are embarrassing our country and the millions of Americans who fought and died to defeat Nazism.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 15, 2017

The Charlottesville rally turned violent after hundreds of white nationalists converged on the college town to protest plans to remove a statue of Confederate civil war general Robert E. Lee.

"Many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statute of Robert E. Lee… I wonder, is it George Washington next week?" pic.twitter.com/uuHuGhqjlz

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 15, 2017

Street brawls broke out as the white nationalists were met by crowds of anti-racism demonstrators.

A car then ploughed into a group of the counter-protesters, killing one woman and injuring 19 other people.

A 20-year-old Ohio man, James Fields, said to have harboured Nazi sympathies, was charged with murder, malicious wounding and leaving the scene of a fatal accident.

Trump's statement was fair and down to earth. #Charlottesville could have been peaceful, if police did its job. https://t.co/3FUgmWoiWi

— Richard Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) August 15, 2017

Trump this morning explained his initial restrained response by saying: “The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement, was a fine statement, but you don’t make statements that direct unless you know the facts. It takes a little while to get the facts.”

Racists, anti-Semites and white supremacists. Or as @POTUS calls them, "very fine people."

Wednesday's front page: https://t.co/vHdKLBQeww pic.twitter.com/JO1N9GI14V

— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) August 16, 2017

He also hit back at a raft of business leaders – including Alliance for American Manufacturing president Scott Paul – who have quit the president’s American Manufacturing Council.

“For every CEO that drops out of the Manufacturing Council, I have many to take their place. Grandstanders should not have gone on. Jobs!” Mr Trump said on Twitter.

But Australian Dow Chemical Company chief executive Andrew Liveris will remain on the Manufacturing Council, with a Dow spokesperson confirmed to AAP today the Darwin-born businessman “will continue to contribute to the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative”.

I cannot sit on a council for a President that tolerates bigotry and domestic terrorism; I resign, effective immediately. pic.twitter.com/ip6F2nsoog

— Richard Trumka (@RichardTrumka) August 15, 2017

Trump also won’t say whether he plans to keep Steve Bannon, a top adviser and key campaign strategist, in the White House.

“We’ll see what happens with Mr Bannon,” Trump said at the impromptu news conference, as he fielded questions about his confidence in his adviser.

Bannon, the former leader of conservative Breitbart News website, has been a contentious figure in a divided White House for months. Bannon once described Breitbart as “the platform for the alt-right”.

The President said Bannon is a friend and “a good man… he is not a racist”.

Trump’s less-than-enthusiastic defence called into question Bannon’s own assessment of the situation – he had been telling people that he believed his job was safe, following a conversation in recent days with new chief of staff John Kelly.

The decision whether to oust Bannon is more than just personnel matter.

The media guru is viewed in some circles as Trump’s connection to his base and the protector of Trump’s disruptive, conservative agenda.

But Bannon’s high profile and puppet-master image have at times irked a president who doesn’t like to share the spotlight and bristles at the suggestion that he needs a liaison to his base.

In April, Trump diminished Bannon’s role to that of “a guy who works for me”.

The president doubled down on that dismissiveness at today’s press conference, distancing Bannon from his unexpectedly successful presidential campaign.

“I went through 17 senators, governors, and I won all the primaries. Mr Bannon came on very much later than that,” he said.

Bannon’s supporters say Trump is being pressed by advisers such as chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and deputy national security adviser Dina Powell.

Kelly has also expressed concerns to Trump about Bannon, and is said to be particularly angry with a flood of negative stories about national security adviser H.R. McMaster that some in the White House believe are being leaked by Bannon.

Kelly has grown weary of the conservative attacks on McMaster and believes that even if Bannon is not personally responsible for them, he has not done enough to quell them.

Bannon has denied being behind the anti-McMaster campaign.

 

-with Reuters, AP, AAP

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