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Fact check: Donald trump said there were very fine people on both sides of a nazi rally?
1. Summary of the results
The statement requires significant context. Donald Trump did indeed say there were "very fine people on both sides" during a press conference about the Charlottesville rally [1] [2]. However, in the same press conference, Trump explicitly stated he was NOT referring to neo-Nazis and white supremacists, whom he said should be "condemned totally" [3]. The full transcript shows Trump was specifically referring to people protesting the removal of Confederate statues, not white supremacist groups [2].
2. Missing context/alternative viewpoints
Several crucial pieces of context are missing from the original question:
- Trump made multiple statements over time:
- An initial vague statement about violence "on many sides" [4]
- A follow-up statement explicitly condemning racism, the KKK, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists, calling racism "evil" [5]
- The "very fine people" comment during the press conference
- The rally itself was fundamentally a white supremacist event, and the most significant violence resulted in a counter-protester being killed by a right-wing extremist [6]
- Trump repeatedly tried to draw a distinction between statue protesters and neo-Nazis, though they were part of the same rally [7]
3. Potential misinformation/bias in the original statement
This statement has been used politically in various ways:
- Democratic narrative: Joe Biden and others have used this statement to argue Trump created "moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it" [2]
- White nationalist interpretation: Some white nationalist groups initially interpreted Trump's vague "many sides" statement as tacit approval of their actions [4]
- Trump supporters' perspective: They emphasize that Trump explicitly condemned neo-Nazis and white supremacists, arguing his comments about "fine people" were specifically about statue preservation advocates [8]
The controversy over this statement demonstrates how the same words can be interpreted differently based on political alignment and whether one considers the broader context or isolated quotes.