Left-leaning fact-checker finally admits Trump never called neo-Nazis 'very fine people' after 7 years, falsehood spread by Biden
It only took nearly seven years, but left-leaning fact-checking website Snopes finally admitted that former President Donald Trump never called neo-Nazis or white supremacists in Charlottesville "very fine people." The falsehood has regularly been spread by President Joe Biden.
The media-driven controversy stemmed from the so-called "Unite the Right" rally held in August 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. The demonstration was attended by various groups across the political spectrum, including neo-Nazis, white supremacists, individuals protesting the removal of a Confederate statue, and progressives holding a counter-protest.
The demonstration turned violent when James Fields Jr. deliberately rammed his car into a group of counter-protesters. Civil rights activist Heather Heyer was killed in the car attack and more than 30 others were injured. He was sentenced to life in prison on federal hate crime charges.
Days after the deadly attack, then-President Trump held a press conference and was asked by a reporter about the neo-Nazis at the rally and said:
Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down, of to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.
Despite the availability of Trump's quote made on Aug. 15, 2017, Snopes waited nearly seven years to challenge the media narrative that the former president called the neo-Nazis "very fine people."
On Thursday, Snopes published a fact-check article titled: "No, Trump Did Not Call Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists 'Very Fine People.'"
The left-leaning fact-checker noted:
In a news conference after the rally protesting the planned removal of a Confederate statue, Trump did say there were "very fine people on both sides," referring to the protesters and the counter-protesters. He said in the same statement he wasn't talking about neo-Nazis and white nationalists, who he said should be "condemned totally."
Snopes was inundated with complaints about the fact-check by its liberal readership, to which it released an editor's note the next day:
Editors' Note: Some readers have raised the objection that this fact check appears to assume Trump was correct in stating that there were "very fine people on both sides" of the Charlottesville incident. That is not the case. This fact check aimed to confirm what Trump actually said, not whether what he said was true or false. For the record, virtually every source that covered the Unite the Right debacle concluded that it was conceived of, led by and attended by white supremacists, and that therefore Trump was wrong.
Since Trump's "very fine people" remark, numerous Democrats have pounced on his comments by misconstruing his words. Biden has regularly spread the partial, misleading "very fine people" hoax in an attempt to hurt Trump politically. Snopes noted that the misinformation "spread like wildfire" and was "a cornerstone" of Biden's 2020 campaign." You can see examples of Biden weaponizing Trump's quote here, here, here, and here.
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