Trump Jr. defends dad’s response to racial protests
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Donald Trump Jr. on Thursday stood by his father’s declarations that “both sides” were to blame after August’s racially driven violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a white supremacist killed a counter-protester.
President Donald Trump’s eldest son said his father was criticized only because of an “atmosphere of hatred” on the left that the younger Trump blamed on liberal university campuses and traditional media.
“He condemned … the white nationalists and the left-wingers,” Trump Jr. said during the annual fundraising gala for Faulkner University, a private Christian university in Alabama. “That should not have been controversial, but it was.”
Trump Jr., who was paid as Faulkner’s keynote speaker, went on to cite examples of violence on the left. He mentioned antifa, far-left-leaning militant groups that call themselves anti-fascist, for outbursts in Berkeley, California. He alluded to the former Bernie Sanders supporter who shot at Republican congressmen gathering for baseball practice, nearly killing Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana.