NEW YORK (REUTERS) - US President Donald Trump unabashedly insisted on Tuesday (Aug 15) that both left- and right-wing extremists resorted to violence during a weekend rally by white nationalists in Virginia, and that some present were peacefully protesting against plans to remove a Confederate monument when the upheaval began.
Mr Trump, taking questions from reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, reverted to his initial comments blaming "many sides" for last Saturday's violence in Charlottesville, a day after bowing to pressure to explicitly condemn the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.
"They came at each other with clubs... it was a horrible thing to watch," Mr Trump said during what was supposed to be an announcement about his administration's infrastructure policy. He also said left-wing protesters "came violently, attacking the other group".
Mr Trump has faced a storm of criticism from Democrats and members of his own Republican Party over his response to the deadly violence, which erupted after white nationalists converged in Charlottesville for a "Unite the Right" rally in protest of plans to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee, commander of the pro-slavery Confederate army during the US Civil War.
. The comment drew sharp criticism across the political spectrum for not explicitly condemning the white nationalists whose presence in the Southern college town was widely seen as having provoked the unrest.
Critics said Mr Trump's remarks then belied his reluctance to alienate extreme right-wing organisations, whose followers constitute a devoted segment of his political base despite his disavowal of them.
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Mr Trump's detractors dismissed his revised statements as "too little too late". But his remarks on Tuesday, casting blame on both sides and suggesting that not everyone attending the rally was a white supremacist, newly inflamed the controversy.
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke immediately applauded Mr Trump on Twitter. "Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa," Mr Duke wrote, referring to Black Lives Matter (BLM) and anti-fascists.
