An unapologetic President Trump doubled down Tuesday on his assertion that “both sides” were to blame for the deadly unrest in Charlottesville — condemning “the alt-left” and defending some who marched to protect a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

“What about the alt-left that came charging at, as you say, at the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt? What about the fact that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs?” the president said during a combative news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower.

“I watched that very closely, much more closely than you people watched it. You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. I’ll say it right now,” the president said in remarks that were sure to prolong the debate over his response to the mayhem in Virginia.

“You look at both sides. I think there is blame on both sides. I have no doubt about it,” Trump said. “You also had some very fine people on both sides.”

The weekend protests included white nationalists and neo-Nazis — some flying Nazi flags and others carrying torches and assault weapons — who opposed the statue’s removal.

But Trump insisted there were also good people protesting against the statue’s removal who had been “treated unfairly.”

“You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. The press has treated them absolutely unfairly. You had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest,” the president insisted.

“Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me,” he said.

He dove headfirst into the national debate over the fate of monuments that honor controversial historical figures.

“George Washington was a slave owner. So will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? Are we going to take down his statue? He was a major slave owner,” Trump said.

“ You have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”

Trump, who began his appearance in a bid to tout his infrastructure plan, quickly found himself on the defensive as reporters fired repeated questions about Charlottesville.

He railed against “fake news,” called the press dishonest and turned red with rage as he defended his handling of the aftermath — even praising his own much-maligned initial remarks from Saturday.

“Everybody said [my] statement was beautiful,” the president said. “The statement I made on Saturday, the first statement, was a fine statement.”

And the president — famed for his rapid-fire tweets and comments on terror attacks and other news of the day — said he didn’t give a fuller statement on Saturday because he wanted to learn all the facts.

“I wanted to make sure, unlike most politicians, that what I said was correct,” he said.

As Trump spoke, his new chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, stood near the elevators with his hands clasped, looking down, away from other staffers.

A White House official later told CNN that senior staff had hoped Trump could turn the corner on the issue — but the president didn’t stick to the script.

Trump’s heated comments and combative tone came a day after he delivered more measured remarks, condemning far-right hate groups like the KKK by name — and a day after protesters pulled down and destroyed a Confederate monument outside the former county courthouse in Durham, NC.

North Carolina Central University student Takiya Thompson — who allegedly scaled a ladder and wrapped a strap around the statue — was arrested Tuesday, and officials were working to identify and charge others who took part in the toppling.

In Florida, city workers on Monday removed a Confederate statue known as “Old Joe” from outside a county building and returned it to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, which installed it in 1904.

There are also plans to remove Confederate statutes in Jacksonville, Fla., and Lexington, Ky., and proposals to do so in San Antonio, Texas, and in Memphis and Nashville, Tenn. — where the statues honor Nathan Bedford Forrest, who was also the first grand wizard of the KKK.

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh announced plans to move several statues to cemeteries with Confederate dead outside the city — only to have the City Council vote to destroy them instead.

In addition to Confederate heroes, monuments to racially divisive figures are also being targeted, with one of the Maryland statues honoring former US Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney, who wrote the infamous Dred Scott decision that denied citizenship to African-Americans.