NEW YORK • US President Donald Trump has drawn bipartisan flak after blaming both the left and right for the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, that ended with the death of a young woman after a car crashed into a crowd.

In a combative exchange with reporters on Tuesday, he criticised "alt-left" groups that he claimed were "very, very violent" when they tried to confront nationalist and Nazi groups protesting against the removal of a statue of a Confederate icon from a park.

His comments came as vandals defaced the Lincoln Memorial in Washington with an obscene message, the National Park Service said on Tuesday.

SEE WORLD