On Saturday, 32-year-old Heather Heyer was killed after authorities say a white nationalist slammed his car into a group of protesters rallying to combat hate. It took the president some two days to come out against the group of people whose tiki-torch-laced march led to the death of Heyer and the injuries of several others.
That’s because the conundrum for President Donald Trump has always been how to a publicly denounce a hate group whose cause he also believes in. Trump didn’t speak out against the group after the attack because he didn’t want to. One thing that Trump has proved unequivocally since taking office is that no one can stop him from doing anything he wants to do. Not the Constitution, not the law, not Congress, not his staff, not his family.
Literally no one in that damn White House can keep President Little Fingers off Twitter if he’s awake. In the end, some 48 hours later, the president succumbed to the pressure of the media and those he governs, who demanded that he call the evil out by name.
But since that press conference, the president has been undoing any of those fooled by his words because this president can’t leave well enough alone. He cannot denounce evil on American soil by the most notorious terrorists people of color have ever seen: white men.
Since reading his prepared statement from a teleprompter (remember, Trump likes to go off the cuff) regarding the Charlottesville, Va., hate march, he’s retweeted a white nationalist leader, and now he’s backtracked on damn near half the stuff he said. During a press conference Tuesday from Trump Tower in New York City about infrastructure, a testy and defiant Trump continued to claim that “both sides” should be blamed for the violence in Charlottesville, even noting that the white nationalist marchers had “permits” while the counterprotesters didn’t.
Watch below and try not to break your TV:
And, of course, his boy, Trump’s brother from another mother, David Duke, tweeted his approval: