The Trump campaign said a recent fact-checking report that debunked claims that then-President Trump made favorable comments about neo-Nazis in 2017 showed Biden and his campaign had spread “lies” and called on them not to spread “hoaxes” again.
The left-leaning fact-checking website Snopes published an article on Saturday refuting claims made by President Biden and some media outlets that Trump called neo-Nazis “very fine people” after the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Biden has repeatedly cited the false claim, even saying it inspired him to run for president in 2020 against Trump.
Caroline Leavitt, national spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, told Fox News Digital on Sunday that Snopes’ fact checks showed Biden and other “corrupt Democrats” had spread “lies” and “hoaxes.”
“The Charlottesville lie, like so many others, including the Hunter Biden laptop and Russia collusion scandal, is another fabrication spread by the corrupt Democrats and their mouthpieces in the Fake News Media, all in an attempt to discredit President Trump. The Joe Biden campaign must stop all ads spreading this lie because President Trump has once again been proven right,” she said.
Left-wing fact-checker acknowledges Trump never called Charlottesville neo-Nazis ‘very fine people’ in blow to Biden
Former President Trump told the Columbia Journalism Review that he had to contend with “incredible fake news” during his presidency. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnick/File)
In a fact check, Snopes detailed that when Trump made the remarks at a press conference that year, he was clear that he was not calling neo-Nazis “fine people.”
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“Trump said that ‘there are very fine people on both sides,’ but clarified that he was not talking about neo-Nazis or white supremacists, who he said ‘should be completely condemned,’ so we’ve rated the claim ‘False,'” Snopes wrote.
The fact-check, which came just days before the first debate between Trump and Biden, chimes with Trump’s long-standing claim that his comments were taken out of context and quoted before going viral on social media and being promoted by left-wingers and members of the media.
President Biden (Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Two days of protests in Charlottesville in August 2017 saw white supremacists descend on the city and be countered by hundreds of counter-protesters. The protests Violence ensued, with three people killed and dozens injured in attacks including cars hitting people.
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Protesters attend the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12, 2017. (Evelyn Hochstein/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The protests were condemned by both Republicans and Democrats as a display of hateful bigotry, and President Trump said in a statement at the time that such protests and violence “have no place in America.”
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“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this terrible display of hatred, bigotry and violence that took place on many sides, on many fronts,” Trump said in August of that year. At a press conference a few days later, Trump added that he condemned the “horrible display of hatred, bigotry and violence,” drawing criticism from Democrats for his comments that “there is responsibility on both sides” and that there are “very fine people on both sides.”
Biden cited the events in Charlottesville and former President Trump’s response to the protests as motivation for running for president in 2020.
Former President Trump and President Biden (Getty Images)
“With those words, the president of the United States drew a moral equivalence between those who spread hate and those with the courage to stand against it,” Biden said in 2019 when he announced his presidential candidacy.
Biden has repeatedly pointed to the Charlottesville massacre as a moment of national shame, and on the four-year anniversary of the incident, the White House issued a statement saying the rally “put the battle for the soul of America on display for all to see.”
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Earlier this year, Biden was accused of experiencing his own “Charlottesville moment” as anti-Israel protests flared on college campuses across the country following Hamas’ attack on Israel in October, triggering the ongoing war.
“I condemn anti-Semitic protests, which is why I’ve launched a program to address them. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on in Palestine,” Biden told reporters in April, as protests intensified.
Critics of the president quickly took to social media to claim Biden’s comments were the same as what Trump said in 2017 about the Charlottesville riots.
Student protesters gather at an encampment on the Columbia University campus in New York City on April 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Stephen Jeremiah)
“That certainly sounds like he’s really saying there’s very good people on both sides,” Outkick founder Clay Travis said.
“President Biden is saying there are good people on both sides of October 7th,” Federalist editor-in-chief Molly Hemingway wrote.
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Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden campaign for comment on Snopes’ fact check and the Trump campaign’s response, but did not immediately receive a response.
Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
