The Trump campaign says A recent fact-check report debunked the claim that then-President Trump spoke in favor of neo-Nazis in 2017, revealing that President Biden and his campaign had promoted a “lie” and calling on them not to promote the “hoax” again.
Left-wing fact-checking website Snopes published an article on Saturday debunking claims promoted by President Biden and some members of the media that Trump called neo-Nazis “very fine people” after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Biden has repeatedly cited this He has rejected this false claim and even said it was the inspiration for his 2020 White House campaign against Trump.
Trump campaign national press secretary Caroline Levitt told Fox News Digital on Sunday that a Snopes fact check shows Biden and other “corrupt Democrats” promoted “lies” and “hoaxes.”
He said, “The Charlottesville lie was just another hoax spread by corrupt Democrats and their mouthpieces in the fake news media, just like the Hunter Biden laptop, the Russian collusion scandal, and many others, all in an effort to discredit President Trump. Joe Biden’s campaign should stop running any ads promoting this lie because President Trump has once again been proven right.”
Former President Trump told the Columbia Journalism Review that he had to fight “an unbelievable number of fake stories” during his presidency. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik/File)
Snopes detailed in its fact-check that Trump had explicitly stated that he was not calling neo-Nazis “fine people” when he made the comment at a press conference that year.
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Snopes wrote, “While Trump said there are ‘very fine people on both sides,’ he also specifically mentioned that he was not talking about neo-Nazis and white supremacists and said they should be ‘fully condemned.’ Therefore, we have rated this claim as ‘False.'”
This fact check comes just days before the incident. first debate between trump and bidenThe remark now fits Trump’s longstanding argument that the comments were taken out of context, before they spread rapidly on social media and were amplified by the left and members of the media.
President Biden (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Two days of Charlottesville protests in August 2017 saw white nationalists sweep through the city, met by hundreds of counter-protesters. The nature of the protests has changed Three people were killed and dozens injured in the violence, which included people being run over by a car and other attacks.
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Protesters are shown during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Both Republicans and Democrats condemned the protests as a disgusting display of bigotry, including Trump at the time, who said in a statement that such protests and violence had “no place in America.”
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“We strongly condemn this blatant display of hate, bigotry and violence on many sides,” Trump said in August that year. Trump said in a press conference a few days later that he condemned “this blatant display of hate, bigotry and violence” and faced criticism from Democrats after he said “blame is on both sides” and “there are very fine people on both sides.”
Biden described the events as follows Charlottesville, and presenting former President Trump’s response as an incentive to run for the White House in 2020.
Former President Trump and President Biden (Getty Images)
“With these words, the president of the United States has established a moral equivalency between those who spread hate and those who have the courage to stand up against it,” Biden said when announcing his candidacy in 2019.
Biden has repeatedly called Charlottesville a moment of shame for the nation, including on the fourth anniversary, when the White House released a statement saying the rally was “a battle for the soul of America laid bare for all to see.”
Earlier this year, Biden faced criticism for the “Charlottesville moment” as anti-Israel protests spread to college campuses across the country in the wake of Hamas’ attack on the nation in October, which led to the ongoing war.
“I condemn anti-Semitism. That’s why I’ve created a program to combat it. I also condemn people who don’t understand what’s happening to the Palestinians,” Biden told reporters in April as the protests were raging.
The president’s critics soon began pointing out on social media that Biden’s comments echoed what Trump said about the Charlottesville riots in 2017.
Student protesters gather for a protest inside their camp on the Columbia University campus in New York City on April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephen Jeremiah)
“What he really seems to be saying is there are a lot of fine people on both sides,” said OutKick founder Clay Travis.
“President Biden says there are good people on both sides of the aisle on Oct. 7,” Molly Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist, wrote.
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Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden campaign for comment on the Snopes fact check and the Trump campaign’s response, but did not immediately receive a response.
Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
