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The president defended his shocking 2017 comments about the Charlottesville hate rally by saying the Confederacy's general -- a slaveowner who led a war to maintain Black slavery -- was "great."
There may be no bottom to President Trump's unabashed racism -- the man who regularly defames African-American politicians and refers to majority-Black nations as "shitholes" has now gone on record calling Confederate general Robert E. Lee "great."
The comment from Trump came today when he was questioned by White House reporters about his defense of Charlottesville, Va., hatemongers, one of whom killed a counterprotester, Heather Heyer, during the 2017 Unite the Right rally. After Heyer was intentionally struck by a car and killed, Trump declared that there were "very fine people on both sides." The protesters in Charlottesville ostensibly gathered to protest the removal of a statue of Lee, using the incident to slam racial minorities, Jews, and LGBTQ people.
Trump told reporters today that he stands by his comments on Charlottesville.
"If you look at what I said, you will see that that question was answered perfectly," reports The Washington Post. "And I was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general."
This isn't the first time Trump spoke of his admiration for Lee. Last year, he said Lee was a "true great fighter" and a "great general."
Lee commandeered the military of the Confederacy, the Southern states that seceded in 1861 because they wanted to maintain Black slavery. The Civil War is the United States' deadliest conflict, where nearly 1 million people were killed, maimed, or wounded.
After the Civil War, Lee, a former slaveowner, remained an avowed racist and opposed any political rights for African-Americans. Speaking of Black Americans, Lee told a Congressional committee that he hoped Virginia would be "rid of them." Sounds like Trump's kind of guy.
