unravelled the carefully crafted message he read from a tell prompter yesterday. let me remind you what he did say to the nation yesterday. racism is evil. and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the kkk, neo-nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear. those who spread violence strike at the very core of america. racist hate groups are repugnant and then he named them. that was yesterday. today it was a very different world. trump blaming both sides. and his stunning turn did not go unnoticed by the former grand wizard david duke who tweeted moments after the president s press conference, thank you president trump for your honesty and courage to tell the truth
obviously, you can hear there the words of neo-nazis, the torches from the ku klux klan, you will not replace us, of course a reference to blacks, jews, one or the other, both. donald trump did not mean what he said yesterday when he condemned racist groups because the tell prompter was written by, well, we don t know who. but we know today donald trump said what he really thinks. sara, the president sat clearly from your reporting, jeff zel y zeleny s reporting, had no idea this was coming today. reporter: that s right. it was not the plan today. it caught staff members by surprise and told jeff this was all him. this was all trump. sources are also telling us that the president has been very irritable over the last 24 hours. he looked at the media reaction to the statement he made on monday and basically was frustrated that in his mind the
neo-nazis and white supremacists in a contentious exchange with the media. it completely contradicted what trump did yesterday. here is president trump today. excuse me. what about the alt left that came charging at the alt right? do they have any semblance of guilt? but, sir, sir let me ask you this. what about the fact they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? do they have any problem? i think they do. but, sir as far as i m concerned, this was a horrible, horrible day. you re not putting these protester o eers on the same le as you re not putting them on the same level as neo-nazis and clans men? i watched this very closely. much more closely than you
let s get at this. when the president is talking about the alt left that he says were charging with clubs, all right, who are these people? who were they doing? these people dressed in black and there is a group called anti-fathers, a group of people within that group who call themselves black law and they do show up and sew destruction. they have done it in berkeley. we have seen it play out in the west a lot. their ideas are that nonviolence hasn t worked and so they are going to use violence against anyone they see as fascist or neo-nazis. that is something the president should condemn. he did not mention that some of the fighting was from white s supremacists themselves. one, are you the president of america? or are you the president of the alt right? are you only worried about your base with the things he said
and so only the president can stiff arm these people and he needs to get them out of the white house and he needs to say to the american people there are not many sides, i stand on the side of the overwhelming majority of the american public this and the kkk neo-nazis, white supremacists, white nationalists are somebody else. does this become a worse problem for the president? until now many said it s dog whistle, or he didn t clearly denounce david duke, but to donna s point, heather heyer died on president trump s watch when all of this happened and you ve got david duke out there after the fact say, see, he s our guy. does president trump look even worse now? does this put him in a worse position? i think it does. i think the president, despite the fact that he and maybe some around him think that he doesn t have any tank coming off of this, that there is no need for him to get any deeper into this,