Trump Rewrites History Regarding His Comments On Charlottesville

Donald Trump repeatedly went off-script at his rally last night in Phoenix as he railed against the "dishonest" media. He also rewrote history a bit along the way as he recounted his comments on the violent events in Charlottesville last week.

Via the New York Times:

President Trump, stung by days of criticism that he sowed racial division in the United States after deadly clashes in Charlottesville, Va., accused the news media on Tuesday of misrepresenting what he insisted was his prompt, unequivocal condemnation of bigotry and hatred.

After declaring, “What happened in Charlottesville strikes at the core of America,” Mr. Trump delivered a lengthy, aggrieved defense of his statements after the Aug. 12 violence that left one woman dead and the nation reeling at the images of swastikas in Thomas Jefferson’s hometown.

Notably, he omitted blaming “both sides” for the violence as he had on Aug. 15. Those remarks had prompted intense criticism, including from fellow Republican leaders, for seeming to equate the hate groups and the protesters who turned out to oppose them.

Removing his earlier statements about the Charlottesville violence from his jacket pocket, Mr. Trump on Tuesday glibly ticked off a list of racist groups that he had been urged to explicitly denounce, and ultimately did two days after the clashes. But he said the news media quoted him selectively, accused him of responding too late and ignored his message of unity.

“I hit ’em with neo-Nazi. I hit them with everything. I got the white supremacists, the neo-Nazi. I got them all in there. Let’s see. K.K.K., we have K.K.K.,” Mr. Trump said sardonically of his rebuke to Charlottesville racists, after being faulted for failing to condemn those groups in his initial response on the day of the clashes.

You can watch side-by-side comparisons of Trump's original comments on Charlottesville versus his edited version he shared in Phoenix below:

President Trump recounted his response to Charlottesville at his Phoenix rally last night — but he left out the most controversial part. pic.twitter.com/bQnzDoljb5

— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 23, 2017