Charlottesville Mayor Slams Trump For ‘Courting’ White Supremacists

In this Nov. 15, 2016, photo, Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer, center, during a press conference in Charlottesville, Va. Signer has become the target of anonymous Twitter trolls’ hate-filled, Anti-Semitic messa... In this Nov. 15, 2016, photo, Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer, center, during a press conference in Charlottesville, Va. Signer has become the target of anonymous Twitter trolls’ hate-filled, Anti-Semitic messages after condemning a weekend protest over the planned removal of a Confederate monument. (Ryan M. Kelly/The Daily Progress via AP) MORE LESS
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Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer (D) on Sunday slammed President Donald Trump for his campaign’s “intentional courting” of white supremacist groups and his failure to condemn them in the wake of violence at a rally that left dozens injured.

“Look at the campaign he ran,” Signer said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“Look at the intentional courting, both on the one hand all of these white supremacist, white nationalist groups like that, anti-Semitic groups, and then look on the other hand the repeated failure to step up and condemn, denounce, silence, put to bed all of those different efforts, just like we saw yesterday,” he added. “This is not hard.”

Violence broke out on Saturday at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, leaving three dead. James Alex Fields, Jr. was charged with second-degree murder after driving a car into a group of protesters, killing one woman and injuring dozens of people.

On NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” Signer said Trump’s campaign went “to the gutter.”

“I think they made a choice in that campaign, a very regrettable one, to really go to people’s prejudices,” he said. “I mean, these influences around the country, these anti-Semites, racists, Aryans, KKK, they’re always in the shadows, but, you know, they’ve really been given a key and a reason to come in the light.”

“It’s now on the President and on all of us to say, enough is enough,” he added. “This movement has run its course.”

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