Shorter video of me confrontating #UnitetheRight2 organizer Jason Kessler. Kessler totally stupified when I ask him why they’re celebrating #HeatherHyer’s murder. “Get this guy back,” he orders his goons pic.twitter.com/84qNxkgaSK — Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) August 12, 2018

The “Unite the Right 2” rally in Washington, D.C. was very small. On Sunday, possibly dozens of white nationalists, white supremacists and neo-Nazis were almost immediately dwarfed by the size of their police escort, which numbered in the hundreds, and variously aligned counter-protesters, who numbered in the thousands.

District police had gone to great lengths in order to keep the right-wing rally-goers cordoned off from the general public. As the relatively tiny number of participants exited a private metro rail car which had been requisitioned and provided for them, however, police and Jason Kessler‘s group encountered a few journalists and anti-racist activists.

The police escort quickly moved to shoo and shout onlookers and counter-protesters away, eventually closing down the highway overpass used to secret the group toward their final destination in front of the White House–where they made multiple entreaties to President Donald Trump–but not before freelance journalist Alex Rubinstein got in a few timely questions.

As a dictation machine is placed toward Kessler’s face by another reporter, Rubinstein asks:

Kessler, why are you celebrating the murder of Heather Heyer? Why are you celebrating it? Why are you celebrating the murder of Heather Heyer? Tell me why? What are you doing here today?

Kessler appears visibly shaken by the questions and pauses for a few beats before instructing someone to, “Keep this guy back.”

Rubinstein continues, asking the white nationalist leader why he’s in D.C.

Kessler does not respond.

[image via screengrab]

Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher

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