Donald Trump’s outrageous defense of the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, was perhaps one of the ugliest episodes of his presidency. It triggered a rare bipartisan rebuke, a high-profile administration official nearly quit in protest, and it’s now a launching point for the 2020 campaign of Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate Trump is said to fear most. And yet, for some reason the president is still defending his handling of the tragic rally, which resulted in the death of 32-year-old counter-protester Heather Heyer. “That question was answered perfectly,” Trump told reporters outside the White House Friday of his infamous comments that there were “very fine people” on “both sides” of the clash. “And I was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general.”

“Whether you like it or not, he was one of the great generals,” Trump continued, like a slow-motion train wreck. “I’ve spoken to many generals here right at the White House, and many people thought of the generals, they think he was maybe their favorite general. People were there protesting the taking down of the monument of Robert E. Lee. Everybody knows that.”

In the aftermath of the protest that killed Heyer, Trump did what he always does, which is to woodenly recite pre-written talking points before going off script to blurt out what he really thinks. Though in theory his press conference was intended to deliver a statement declaring that “racism is evil,” in practice he told stunned reporters that the group of white nationalists included “very fine people,” and that the counter-protesters shared some of the blame. “You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent,” Trump said. “I think there’s blame on both sides, and I have no doubt about it.”

His comments were bound to resurface in an election cycle featuring a historically diverse slate of candidates. Indeed, Trump’s defense of his 2017 presser came a day after Biden launched his 2020 campaign with a video that included footage from the Charlottesville riot, where those protesting the Confederate statue’s removal—including former KKK leader David Duke—suggested they had been emboldened by Trump. “The president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it,” Biden said in the video. “In that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime.” Even if Trump isn’t morally inclined to reconsider his handling of the “Unite the Right” rally, one might think he’d soften his position a little, for no other reason than to mollify moderates. But this president doesn’t seem to care much about appealing to any kind of noble principle, or anyone beyond his base.

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