Charlottesville 'Very Fine People on Both Sides' Statements
Tier 3No Formal Proceeding2017-08-12 to 2017-09-14
Factual Summary
On the evening of August 11, 2017, white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups marched with torches through the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting slogans including "Jews will not replace us." They clashed with counterprotesters near the Rotunda, and several people were pepper-sprayed or struck with lit torches.
On the morning of August 12, 2017, the larger Unite the Right rally began at Emancipation Park. Approximately 500 rally participants and more than 1,000 counterprotesters gathered. Street brawls injured at least 14 people before Charlottesville declared a state of emergency at approximately 11:00 a.m. Virginia State Police declared the gathering an unlawful assembly at 11:22 a.m. and dispersed the crowds. At approximately 1:45 p.m., James Alex Fields Jr., a 20-year-old from Ohio with documented sympathies for Nazi ideology, deliberately drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters roughly half a mile from the rally site. Heather Danielle Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal and civil rights activist, was killed. Thirty-five others were injured. Fields was later convicted of first-degree murder.
Trump responded with three separate public statements over the following four days.
**Statement 1 -- August 12, 2017.** At a previously scheduled bill-signing ceremony at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump said: "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides." The phrase "on many sides," spoken twice, drew immediate criticism from both parties for failing to identify white supremacists and neo-Nazis as the primary actors responsible for the violence.
**Statement 2 -- August 14, 2017.** Following sustained bipartisan pressure, Trump delivered a more direct statement from the White House. He said: "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 as Americans." He also said: "We must love each other, show affection for each other, and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry, and violence."
**Statement 3 -- August 15, 2017.** At an unplanned press conference at Trump Tower, initially called to discuss infrastructure policy, Trump reversed course and restated the "both sides" framework. He said: "I think there is blame on both sides. You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that, but I'll say it right now." He then added: "You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides." He attributed the presence of "very fine people" on the rally side to the dispute over Confederate statues, saying that participants "other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists...were there to innocently protest, and very legally protest." In the same press conference he also said of neo-Nazis and white nationalists: "I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists -- because they should be condemned totally."
The August 15 statement drew immediate and bipartisan condemnation. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch said: "We should call evil by its name. My brother didn't give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home." Republican Senator Marco Rubio stated that Trump's comments "give ammunition to people who spread hate and bigotry." Republican Senator Tim Scott said he had difficulty "defending the president's comments." Republican Senator Bob Corker said Trump "has not been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful." Former Republican Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush issued a joint statement saying: "America must always reject racial bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred in all forms." Multiple members of Trump's business advisory councils resigned in protest, and Trump subsequently dissolved both councils.
On September 14, 2017, Congress passed a joint resolution condemning the Charlottesville violence and specifically naming white nationalists, white supremacists, the Ku Klux Klan, and neo-Nazis. Both chambers passed the resolution unanimously. Trump signed it but, in the same public appearance, reiterated his "both sides" position.
Primary Sources
1. PolitiFact full transcript of Trump's August 15, 2017 press conference, "In Context: Donald Trump's 'very fine people on both sides' remarks": https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trumps-very-fine-people-both-sides-remarks/
2. NPR full transcript of Trump's August 15, 2017 press conference, "Transcript: Trump Shifts Tone Again On White Nationalist Rally In Charlottesville": https://www.npr.org/2017/08/15/543769884/transcript-trump-shifts-tone-again-on-white-nationalist-rally-in-charlottesville
3. PolitiFact, "In Context: President Donald Trump's Saturday Statement on Charlottesville" (August 12 statement): https://www.politifact.com/article/2017/aug/14/context-president-donald-trumps-saturday-statement/
4. Full text of Trump's August 14, 2017 statement, "Full text: Donald Trump says 'racism is evil' in his latest statement on Charlottesville," Quartz: https://qz.com/1053270/full-text-donald-trumps-statement-on-charlottesville
5. U.S. News and World Report, "Trump Signs Charlottesville Resolution but Revives His Response Blaming 'Both Sides,'" September 15, 2017: https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-09-15/trump-signs-charlottesville-resolution-but-revives-his-response-blaming-both-sides
Corroborating Sources
1. NPR, "Trump's Charlottesville Remarks Drew Backlash but Few Lasting Consequences," August 11, 2018: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/11/637665414/a-year-after-charlottesville-not-much-has-changed-for-trump
2. Washington Post, "Trump again blamed 'both sides' in Charlottesville. Here's what people said": https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/national/charlottesville-protest-reactions/
3. PBS NewsHour, "Man who drove into Charlottesville protest, killing Heather Heyer, convicted of first-degree murder": https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/man-who-drove-into-charlottesville-protest-killing-heather-heyer-convicted-of-first-degree-murder
4. CNBC, "Trump again blames both sides for Charlottesville violence," September 14, 2017: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/14/trump-again-blames-both-sides-for-charlottesville-violence.html
5. Wikipedia, "Unite the Right rally" (summary of events, participants, and political reactions): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally
Counterarguments and Context
Trump and his defenders argued that the "very fine people" remark referred exclusively to non-violent participants who opposed the removal of Confederate monuments on statutory grounds, not to neo-Nazis or white supremacists. They pointed to Trump's explicit statement in the same August 15 press conference condemning neo-Nazis and white nationalists as confirmation that those groups were not whom he meant. Trump reiterated this defense in a 2019 interview, saying he was referring to people "debating the monument, the Robert E. Lee monument." Commentators including Steve Cortes and others argued that reading the full August 15 transcript shows Trump drew a clear distinction between violent extremists and ordinary statue protesters, and that selective quotation omitted the clarifying context.
Critics responded that the Unite the Right rally was organized explicitly by white nationalist groups and attracted neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members as its core participants, making the characterization of any portion of its attendees as "very fine people" an implicit validation of the event. They also noted that Trump's August 14 statement naming white supremacists came only after sustained bipartisan pressure, that his August 15 reversal to "both sides" language undermined it, and that his reference to neo-Nazis being outside the "very fine people" category still left room for characterizing the surrounding rally culture favorably.
The statue removal dispute that Trump cited as context was real. Charlottesville had voted earlier in 2017 to remove a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from what was then called Lee Park. The Unite the Right rally was organized in part around opposition to that removal.
Author's Note
This entry is classified as Tier 3 because it is documented through primary sources including contemporaneous press briefing transcripts and the president's own recorded statements, which are not in factual dispute. No criminal charge, civil lawsuit, or formal government proceeding arose from these statements. The controversy is one of interpretation -- specifically, whether Trump's "very fine people" remark encompassed neo-Nazi rally participants or referred only to a separate class of statue protesters who were also present. That interpretive question, and the political significance of Trump's reversal from his August 14 statement, are what give this entry its enduring relevance.