Biden insists Trump called white supremacists ‘very fine people’ after Charlottesville riots

Joe Biden unloaded on a conservative reporter at the Iowa State Fair on Thursday who asked him about Donald Trump’s condemnation for neo-Nazis.

Brietbart News reporter Joel Pollak told him that Trump said ‘specifically that he was condemning them’ after a 2017 race riot in Charlottesville. 

He asked if Biden is ‘aware’ that he is ‘misquoting Donald Trump’ because ‘he never called neo-Nazis “very fine people.” ‘

Biden replied, ‘No, he called all those folks who walked out of that — they were neo-Nazis. Shouting hate, their veins bulging.’

‘Specifically. No, he did not. He said, he walked out and he said – let’s get this straight – he said there were “very fine people” in both groups. They’re chanting anti-Semitic slogans, carrying flags,’ the Democratic presidential candidate said.

Joe Biden unloaded on a conservative reporter at the Iowa State Fair on Thursday who asked him about Donald Trump’s condemnation for white supremacists

Brietbart News reporter Joel Pollak told him that Trump said 'specifically that he was condemning them' after a 2017 race riot in Charlottesville

Brietbart News reporter Joel Pollak told him that Trump said ‘specifically that he was condemning them’ after a 2017 race riot in Charlottesville

Pollak attempted to continue the conversation, asking Biden where he was ‘aware that’ Trump directly denounced white nationalists and neo-Nazis in the same set of remarks.

However, Biden was already in the process of walking away, telling the reporter with a tone of finality, ‘OK,’ as he turned around and began to wade through the throng of people who’d gathered around the tent where candidates can speak to reporters.

Biden deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield shared a partial clip of the exchange that missed the original question and Biden’s full response.

She wrote: ‘@JoeBiden will take zero apologist crap from @BreitbartNews’

Trump did say after a ‘Unite the Right rally’ in August of 2017 that there ‘were very fine people on both sides’ of a clash that left one woman dead. 

‘You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides,’ he told reporters at an Aug. 15 press conference.

Moments later, the president clarified his ‘fine people’ people remark, telling journalists that he was not referring to the neo-Nazis or white nationalists when he talked about the two sides.

‘I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists — because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly,’ he asserted.

Trump made it known that he was also condemning the far-left militant group Antifa for its part in the confrontation.

‘Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people. But you also had troublemakers, and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets, and with the baseball bats. You had a lot of bad people in the other group,’ he stated.

The exchange came at a New York City news conference, amid his annual New Jersey vacation, after a woman protesting the neo-Nazis died when she was deliberately run over by a car.

A group of white activists participate in a torch lit march through the University of Virginia campus ahead of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

A group of white activists participate in a torch lit march through the University of Virginia campus ahead of the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Biden has said that a race riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Trump’s widely panned response to it, inspired him to seek the presidency in 2020. 

He claimed this week in Iowa that Trump ‘gave license and safe harbor for hate to white supremacists, Neo-Nazis and the KKK’ when he claimed that there were ‘very fine people on both sides’ on the violent confrontation.

‘Those words stunned the nation and shocked the world. In doing so, he assigned a moral equivalence between those spewing hate and those with the courage to stand against it,’ he said in Burlington, Iowa, after another tragedy, this time in El Paso, Texas.

Biden declared: ‘We are in a battle for the soul of this nation. It’s why I’m running for President. Charlottesville was no isolated incident.’

The former vice president argued that Trump is fomenting hate with his criticism of illegal immigrants and attacks on minority politicians.

‘In both clear language and in code, this president has fanned the flames of white supremacy in this nation. His low-energy, vacant-eyed mouthing of the words written for him condemning white supremacists this week fooled no one,’ Biden charged.

He added, ‘The energetic embrace of this president by the darkest hearts, the most hate-filled minds in this country says it all.’

Biden gave the address after Trump firmly condemned white supremacy in speech at the White House.

A suspected killer in El Paso posted a white nationalist manifesto online before killing 22 people last Saturday at a local Walmart.

Trump waited until Monday morning to condemn the ideology that drove him, adding kindling to the bonfire that Democrats like El Paso native Beto O’Rourke had been building all weekend.

The former Texas congressman claimed Wednesday that Trump is a white supremacist. Elizabeth Warren seconded him.

Biden wouldn’t do the same, as he spoke to reporters at a press availability after his speech at the Iowa State Fair, minutes before his face-off with the Breitbart News reporter.

‘He is encouraging white supremacy. You can determine what that means,’ he said. ‘I know it’s like everybody wants everybody to call somebody a liar. I don’t call people liars. I said they don’t tell the truth. Okay? You want to hear me say liars so you can put out that Biden called someone a liar. That’s not who I am. You got the wrong guy.’ 

Minutes later, Biden exploded on another journalist after he was asked why he wouldn’t call Trump a ‘white supremacist’ like two of his competitors had.

‘Why are you so hooked on that?’ he told DailyMail.com as he walked around the Iowa State Fair. ‘You just want me to say the words so I sound like everybody else.’

He said, ‘I’m not everybody else. I’m Joe Biden. I’ve always been who I am. I’m staying that way.’

Joe Biden exploded Thursday when asked why he wouldn't call Donald Trump a 'white supremacist'

Joe Biden exploded Thursday when asked why he wouldn’t call Donald Trump a ‘white supremacist’

Joe Biden made a stop at the Iowa State Fair on Thursday

Joe Biden made a stop at the Iowa State Fair on Thursday

Biden’s testy response came after some of his rivals for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination were willing be tougher on Trump, who has become a target of Democrats in the wake of two mass shootings over the weekend. 

‘Yes,’ Warren told The New York Times after a reporter for the paper asked if the president was a white supremacist.

She said, ‘He has given aid and comfort to white supremacists.’ 

Campaigning in Harlan, Iowa, the Massachusetts senator said, ‘He’s done the wink and a nod. He has talked about white supremacists as fine people. He’s done everything he can to stir up racial conflict and hatred in this country.’

O’Rourke told MSNBC Trump has made it ‘very clear’ that he’s a white supremacist. 

Bernie Sanders also agreed Trump was a white supremacist during an interview with CNN over the weekend. 

Biden has refused to go as far as his fellow Democrats. He told reporters Trump is encouraging them on Thursday but wouldn’t go beyond that.

‘I believe everything the president says and has done encourages white supremacists, and I’m not sure there’s much of a distinction. As a matter of fact, it may be even worse,’ he said. 

The president has fought back against Democratic charges he has inflamed racial tensions in the country.

‘I am the least racist person,’ He argued in a Tuesday tweet. 

Elizabeth Warren

Beto O'Rourke

Some of Biden’s 2020 rivals – Elizabeth Warren and Beto O’Rourke – have called Trump a ‘white supremacist’

President Trump has defended himself from charges of racism, saying, 'I am the least racist person'

President Trump has defended himself from charges of racism, saying, ‘I am the least racist person’

Joe Biden buys himself - and a little boy - an ice cream at the state fair on Thursday

Joe Biden buys himself – and a little boy – an ice cream at the state fair on Thursday



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