CLAIM: President Donald Trump “has talked about white supremacists as fine people.”

VERDICT: FALSE — President Trump said non-violent protesters on both right and left were “very fine people,” but neo-Nazis and white supremacists “should be condemned totally.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) repeated the infamous Charlottesville “very fine people” hoax on Wednesday in accusing President Donald Trump of being a white supremacist.

The New York Times reported Thursday (emphasis added):

Asked in a brief interview with The New York Times if she thought Mr. Trump was a white supremacist, Ms. Warren responded without hesitation: “Yes.” “He has given aid and comfort to white supremacists,” Ms. Warren said during a campaign swing in western Iowa. “He’s done the wink and a nod. He has talked about white supremacists as fine people. He’s done everything he can to stir up racial conflict and hatred in this country.”

As Breitbart News and others have documented repeatedly, Trump never referred to white supremacists — or any other hate groups — as “fine people.”

He condemned them repeatedly in the wake of the Charlottesville riots in August 2017, including in a televised statement from the White House. And at a press conference in Trump Tower, New York, where he referred to non-violent protesters on either side of the issue of the removal of a Confederate statue as “very fine people,” Trump added specifically: “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”

The “fine people” hoax has become a staple of Democratic presidential campaigns, including those of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and former vice president Joe Biden. It ostensibly “proves” that Trump is a racist — except, of course, that it does not.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.