What were the exact words of Donald Trump's 'good people on both sides' remark after Charlottesville?

1. The exact words, as recorded in multiple transcripts

Multiple contemporaneous transcripts reproduce the same phrasing: while answering reporters at Trump Tower on August 15, 2017, the president said, “I do think there’s blame — yes, I think there’s blame on both sides. You look at, you look at both sides. I think there’s blame on both sides, and I have no doubt about it… They didn’t put themselves — and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides” ^{[3] [1] [2]}.

2. What came immediately before and after that line

The “very fine people” sentence appears in the middle of a back-and-forth in which Trump first asserted “there’s blame on both sides,” was interrupted by a reporter who noted that “the neo-Nazis started this,” and then continued to explain that some people in the groups were protesting the removal or renaming of Confederate monuments, saying “I saw the same pictures as you did” ^{[5] [2]}. Transcripts also record Trump adding later, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists because they should be condemned totally,” a line his critics often point to as part of a broader, contested context ^[4].

3. The factual record of his earlier statements and official condemnations

Public records show Trump had issued statements that on some occasions condemned “hatred, bigotry and violence” and at other points blamed “many sides” for the unrest; journalists and fact-checkers have repeatedly revisited those earlier lines alongside the “very fine people” sentence to assess whether he sufficiently and promptly denounced white supremacists ^{[6] [5]}. FactCheck.org notes that while critics seized on the “very fine people” remark as morally equivocal, Trump had also twice condemned white supremacists in other statements — a nuance that has fueled competing narratives ^[6].

4. Why one sentence became a national flashpoint

The line’s blunt juxtaposition — acknowledging “very bad people” and immediately asserting “very fine people” on “both sides” — was widely interpreted as equating counterprotesters with organized white-nationalist groups, provoking bipartisan outrage and intense media scrutiny; archives and retrospectives show the phrase quickly became shorthand for accusations that the president had assigned moral equivalence to hate groups and their opponents ^{[3] [4]}.

5. Competing interpretations and stated defenses

Supporters and some documentation argue the quote was taken out of context and stress Trump’s later lines that explicitly condemned neo-Nazis and white nationalists, while critics and many editorial voices say the phrasing and timing undercut those condemnations and created a lasting perception problem for the administration ^{[4] [6]}. Political actors on both sides have used the line to bolster broader narratives — opponents to highlight perceived toleration of extremism, defenders to argue for context and nuance ^{[2] [3]}.

6. What the provided sources do not settle

The transcripts establish the exact words and immediate surrounding remarks ^{[1] [2]}, and analysis sources document the controversy and competing claims ^{[3] [6] [4]}, but they do not resolve subjective questions about intent or whether those words caused specific downstream political actions; such causal judgments extend beyond the verbatim record and are not adjudicated by these transcripts alone ^{[1] [6]}.