President Biden again repeated the false claim that his predecessor Donald Trump called neo-Nazis in Charlottesville “fine people” during a press conference at NATO headquarters Thursday.
A reporter asked about any potential concerns regarding relations between the United States and NATO countries if Trump wins the presidential election in 2024.
Biden went on a tangent and repeated the Charlottesville story, something he has cited in the past as the very reason he ran for President in the first place.
“I had no intention of running for President again and — until I saw those folks coming out of the fields in Virginia carrying torches and carrying Nazi banners and literally singing the same vile rhyme that they used in Germany in the … ‘30s,” he said.
“And then, when the gentleman you mentioned (Trump) was asked what he thought — and a young woman was killed, a protester — … he said, ‘There are very good people on both sides,'” Biden continued. “And that’s when I decided I wasn’t going to be quiet any longer.”
As PolitiFact points out, Biden leaves out the context of Trump explicitly saying, “And you had people — and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists — because they should be condemned totally.”
It will always be funny to me when Biden says how Trump’s “very fine people on both sides” line from Charlottesville was his inspiration to run for president.
The man literally began his presidential campaign on a lie. pic.twitter.com/hJlu8EDFCG
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 24, 2022
RELATED: Biden Kicks Off Campaign By Spreading an Easily Debunked Lie
Biden’s ‘Good People’ Story
Biden’s Charlottesville malarkey has been taken on even by reliably liberal fact-checkers.
In reality, within seconds of making the ‘fine people’ comment referring to the peaceful protestors in Charlottesville at that press conference, the President specifically called out the bigots at the rally.
“I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists,” Trump said, “because they should be condemned totally.”
The transcript spells it out plainly:
Additionally, Trump went on to say that the press coverage of the rally focusing on some peaceful rallygoers was unfair, and he again drew a distinction between those people and the white nationalists.
“You were saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?” a reporter asked. knowing full well he hadn’t.
“No, no,” Trump responded. “There were people in that rally … protesting very quietly … I’m sure in that group there were some bad ones.”
“The following day, it looked like they had some rough, bad people, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call ‘em.”
?FACT CHECK: After Charlottesville, President Trump said, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.” #DemConvention pic.twitter.com/qCOhDu0x3r
— Abigail Marone ?? (@abigailmarone) August 21, 2020
To summarize, Trump said:
- Bad people, not fine people, when referencing the racists in the crowd.
- The neo-Nazis and white nationalists “should be condemned totally.”
Of course Joe Biden waffled on about Charlottesville and brought up the debunked “good people on both sides” line at the NATO emergency summit.
Trump lives in their heads rent free.
— Lewis Brackpool (@Lewis_Brackpool) March 24, 2022
RELATED: Video Surfaces of Joe Biden Praising Group Supporting Confederate Flag as ‘Fine People’
Welcomes a Rematch With Trump
President Biden, as a senator in 1993, praised a group known as the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) – an organization committed to preserving Confederate statues with ties to the Ku Klux Klan – as “fine people.”
Biden said the group, whom historians for quite some time have referred to as an advocacy group for white supremacy, was “an organization made up of many fine people who continue to display the Confederate flag.”
Here’s Joe Biden saying he believes people who “display the Confederate flag” are “fine people.” https://t.co/llfVILLtwI pic.twitter.com/zrHTuFhNuU
— Andrew Clark (@AndrewHClark) June 12, 2020
Biden also told reporters at the NATO summit he’d feel pretty lucky if Trump was his opponent in a 2024 re-election effort.
“The next election, I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me,” he boasted.
Biden discussed Trump and the 2024 election at the NATO summit.
“In the next election, I’d be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me,” he told reporters. https://t.co/4hZJDjcnj7 pic.twitter.com/kITbcUrdZ0
— POLITICO (@politico) March 24, 2022
Considering that comment came in the same response in which he mentioned Charlottesville, it would appear Biden feels very confident in being able to repeat that claim ad nauseam with no repercussions from the media for spreading misinformation.
And why not? Approximately three years ago – three years minimum he’s been telling this story – Biden kicked off his campaign with the same ‘fine people’ lie.
“With those words, the president of the United assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it,” Biden said.
That Biden repeated this false claim in front of NATO allies is despicable.
