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Fact Check the Left: Did Trump Refuse To Denounce White Supremacists in First Presidential Debate?

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  September 30, 2020 8:05 PM

We’re back to this crap again. The first presidential debate was a rowdy one. It did go off the rails, but President Trump was aggressive, prepared, and showed no mercy. Maybe at times, Trump could have eased up a bit and allowed Joe Biden to have an epic word salad moment, but two things prevented that. One was moderator Chris Wallace, who kept swooping in to save Biden. The second was the fact that Biden and Wallace spewed an endless stream of lies. And yes, one of the biggest whoppers popped up again last night. It’s the one that liberal America obsesses over. 

It’s one that’s easily debunked if you simply read the transcript.

The ghost of Charlottesville reared its ugly head when this was brought up last night. So, once again, the president was asked to denounce white supremacists because those people never ever filled the ranks of the Democratic Party, right? The Ku Klux Klan was totally a Republican project from its inception, said by no one. 

So, before we get into the debate’s nonsense, let’s rehash the ‘very fine people on both sides’ lie from 2017 because this is what set this whole circus off. Here’s the full transcript of the exchange during the August press conference in that year:

REPORTER: You said there was hatred and violence on both sides?

TRUMP: I do think there is blame – yes, I think there is blame on both sides. You look at, you look at both sides. I think there’s blame on both sides, and I have no doubt about it, and you don't have any doubt about it either. And, and, and, and if you reported it accurately, you would say.

REPORTER: The neo-Nazis started this thing. They showed up in Charlottesville.

TRUMP: Excuse me, they didn't put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down, of to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.

REPORTER: George Washington and Robert E. Lee are not the same.

TRUMP: Oh no, George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down – excuse me. Are we going to take down, are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him? Okay, good. Are we going to take down his statue? He was a major slave owner. Are we going to take down his statue? You know what? It’s fine, you’re changing history, you’re changing culture, and you had people – and I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally – but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly.

So, now that the foundation for this obsession to get Trump to denounce these groups which he has done, let’s focus on when this was brought up during last night’s debate. The Federalist’s Emily Jashinsky thought the debate was “garbage” last night, I disagree, but she wrote, “Trump didn't ‘refuse’ to denounce white supremacy, as much of the media is now saying…Interpretations are welcome from pundits and analysts. They are not facts.”

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RATING: TOTAL GARBAGE

Look, contrary to most, I liked the debate. It didn’t move the needle. Trump needs to dial it back just a bit, just enough for Biden to hang himself on some response about economic policy because you know that’s going to happen, and then attack. When Biden isn’t having a dementia episode, he has diarrhea of the mouth. He’ll make mistakes. Just let him speak some more. 

Yet, this notion that Trump refused to condemn white nationalist groups is once again another classic example of misinterpretation by the press. There are other instances where the president has denounced such groups, and he’s done so by name. It’s just a flat-out media myth to suggest that Trump hasn’t denounced the KKK, white nationalist, and neo-Nazi groups. We have videos. We have the transcripts. We have the receipts. The liberal media just needs to, you know, be better at their job or better yet, not be so willing to ignore what is clear as day in order to help Hidin’ Biden win an election. This is why people hate you. This is why you suck. The liberal media establishment’s game here is beyond transparent. You think we don’t have people keeping tabs on this stuff we do. And we’re better than you, and we know it. 

Stop lying. But we know you won’t, and I sort of hope you don’t. It’s fun beating you folks half to death with a baseball bat…of truth.