Despite criticism that the President has still not condemned white supremacy after a self-proclaimed member of the fringe group drove a car into a crowd of counter protestors at a white supremacy rally this weekend, Attorney General Jeff Sessions defended the President saying he made a “very strong statement.”
“He said what happened in Charlottesville is unacceptable and we need to find out what happened, that it’s wrong and we need to study it and see what as a nation we can do to be more effective against this kind of extremism and evil,” he said on the “Today” show Monday. “It was a good statement delivered just a few hours after the event. The next day, yesterday, they explicitly called out the Nazis and the KKK.”
The hosts of the show pushed back, saying that statement came from an unnamed White House spokesperson, not President Donald Trump himself. Sessions said the name on the statement was irrelevant.
“I’m sure he will talk again about it soon. He will be speaking to the people today. I’m not sure what he will say, but that’s my understanding. He’s been firm on this from the beginning. He is appalled by this,” Sessions said.
Sessions’ rhetoric is similar to Vice President Mike Pence’s defense of the President, who said Trump “clearly and unambiguously condemned the bigotry, violence and hatred” and questioned why the media was spending more time criticizing the President’s words than “criticizing those who perpetrated the violence to begin with.”
Watch the interview below:
Trump was given an opportunity to condemn white supremacists. Why didn’t he call them out? @savannahguthrie & @craigmelvin ask AG Sessions pic.twitter.com/uybkjR5mdM
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) August 14, 2017
