Washington, Aug 14 (EFE).- US President Donald Trump on Monday condemned the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, white supremacists “and other hate groups” after a man with known Nazi sympathies drove his car into anti-fascist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one and injuring at least 19.
“Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the (Ku Klux Klan), neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,” the president said from the White House.
“As I have said many times before, no matter the color of our skin, we all live under the same laws,” the president said. “We all salute the same great flag. And we are all made by the same almighty God.”
Trump, who began his appearance before the media boasting about the good economic performance so far during his mandate, issued his condemnation of hate groups after two days of receiving widespread criticism, including from his own party, for on Saturday having said that “hatred, bigotry and violence” had been evidenced “on many sides” and failing to single out the white supremacists who had called the march in Charlottesville.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides,” the president had said at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club. “On many sides. It’s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama. This has been going on for a long, long time. It has no place in America.”
The president did not take questions after he made his statement on Monday, despite the fact that on Friday he had announced that on Monday he would hold a White House press conference, although he had not specified the subject.
The president also reminded the public that, during his White House run, he had promised to restore “law and order.”
He went on to note that the FBI and the Justice Department have launched a civil rights investigation into the attack staged by a 20-year-old man with Nazi sympathies in which one young woman died and at least 19 other people were injured.
Trump met on Monday in Washington with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray to discuss the Charlottesville attack, a meeting scheduled during a brief hiatus from his Bedminster vacation.
Meanwhile Sessions said Monday, before meeting with Trump, that the attack in Charlottesville was an act of “domestic terrorism.”
“It does meet the definition of domestic terrorism in our statute,” Sessions said in an interview Saturday on the ABC network, after his department announced Saturday the opening of a federal investigation into the deadly incident.
Calling the attack “domestic terrorism” is more symbolic than practical, since that definition does not imply additional punishment, but it is important for those who complain that the word “terrorism” is only used when the attacker is a Muslim.