Charlottesville Mayor Draws ‘Direct Line’ To Trump On White Supremacists
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By Dave Goldiner August 14, 2017
Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer placed the blame squarely on President Trump for the deadly hatred on display in the city, where thousands of marchers targeted Jews and blacks with racist slogans.
The outspoken mayor, who is Jewish, repeatedly pointed to Trump’s divisive campaign and his failure to distance himself from the radical right.
“Look at the campaign he ran,” Signer told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “Look at the intentional courting, on one hand, of all these white supremacists, white nationalists … and look on the other hand at the repeated failure to step up, condemn, denounce, silence, put to bed all of these different efforts, just like we saw yesterday. This isn’t hard.”
“You are seeing a direct line from what happened here this weekend to those choices,” Signer told CBS.
Signer also blasted Trump for failing to specifically condemn white supremacists in his response to the violence, which tepidly blamed “all sides.”
“What I did not hear in the president’s statement yesterday, as well-intentioned as it may have been, is I didn’t hear the words ‘white supremacy,’” he said. “And I think that it’s important to call this for what it is.”
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