What are the facts behind Donald Trump's claims about the Charlottesville violence?

Donald Trump, the US president, defended his response to the weekend's racially charged protests in Charlottesville in a bruising exchange with reporters. 

In his remarks, Mr Trump described the rally as largely over the removal of a Confederate monument, although an organiser billed it as pushback against the "anti-white climate".

Mr Trump also misstated his levels of political support in the 2016 election.

Here, we look at his claims - and the facts.

On the 'rough, bad people' in the crowd

What Mr Trump said

"But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists, by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue, Robert E Lee...

"There were people in that rally, and I looked the night before. If you look, they were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E Lee. I'm sure in that group there were some bad ones.

"The following day, it looked like they had some rough, bad people - neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them.

"But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest, because you know - I don't know if you know, they had a permit. The other group didn't have a permit."

The facts

The organiser of the rally, a local right-wing blogger and activist, has said he initially was spurred because of the city's decision to remove the statue.

But he has also said the event, dubbed "Unite the Right," came to represent much more than that.

Jason Kessler said last week before the event that it was "about an anti-white climate within the Western world and the need for white people to have advocacy like other groups do".

Those in the crowd included Ku Klux Klan members, skinheads and members of various white nationalist factions. Many were heavily armed. Some flew Nazi flags. They hurled racial slurs at counter-demonstrators and gave Nazi salutes.

Charlottesville far-right protest

White nationalist Richard Spencer - who popularised the term "alt-right" to describe the fringe movement mixing white supremacy, white nationalism, anti-Semitism and anti-immigration populism - said on Tuesday that the event was more than "just a Southern heritage festival".

He said Confederate monuments are "a metaphor for something much bigger, and that is white dispossession and the de-legitimisation of white people in this country and around the world".

On what the protest victim's mother said

What Mr Trump said

"In fact, the young woman, who I hear is a fantastic young woman and it was on NBC, her mother wrote me and said through, I guess Twitter, social media, the nicest things and I very much appreciated that.

"I hear she was a fine, really actually an incredible young woman. But her mother on Twitter thanked me for what I said."

The facts

Mr Trump is correct. On Monday, NBC News tweeted that Susan Bro, the mother of the counter-protester killed on Saturday, had thanked the president for "denouncing those who promote violence and hatred".

When asked in an interview on Tuesday about her comments, she did not repeat the praise for the President.

"I was so tired I don't remember saying something nice or derogatory about him," she said, adding she did not want to criticise the president.

Kim Bro, her husband, said he did not think it was fair for the president to use a grieving mother for his own personal gain.

He added that he thinks the focus should be on his stepdaughter - "what she stood for and what will come out of it".

On the 'alt-Left' and violent confrontations

What Mr Trump said

When asked about the "alt-Right" - a term used by white supremacists, neo-Nazis and nationalists to describe themselves, Mr Trump replied: "What about the alt-Left that came charging them? Do they have any semblance of guilt?"

The facts

The term "alt-Left", coined by Mr Trump, is not widely used. Whereas members of white supremacist groups would define themselves as belonging to the "alt-Right", the "alt-Left" is far less easy to understand.

The majority of those who assembled to protest against the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville did so peacefully.

But photos and videos from Saturday's riot do show people dressed in black, their faces covered, engaging the neo-Nazis in violent confrontation. 

According to an article in the current issue of The Atlantic, Antifa, a militant Leftist organisation, traces its roots to the 1920s and ’30s, when militant leftists battled fascists in the streets of Germany, Italy, and Spain.

Protesters listen during a "Peace and Sanity" rally Sunday Aug. 13, 2017, in New York, as speakers address white supremacy violence in Charlottesville - Credit: Bebeto Matthews/AP
Protesters listen during a peace rally on Sunday in New York, as speakers address the violence in Charlottesville Credit: Bebeto Matthews/AP

"When fascism withered after World War II, Antifa did too," wrote Peter Beinart, a professor at New York University.

"But in the ’70s and ’80s, neo-Nazi skinheads began to infiltrate Britain’s punk scene. After the Berlin Wall fell, neo-Nazism also gained prominence in Germany.

"In response, a cadre of young leftists, including many anarchists and punk fans, revived the tradition of street-level antifascism."

The group of rioters seek to meet "alt-Right" activity with violence.

In the same way that Left-wing anarchists in Greece battled police during protests against austerity measures, masked groups in America will challenge Right-wing rallies and speeches.

On Inauguration Day, a masked activist punched the white-supremacist leader Richard Spencer, and a month later protesters violently disrupted plans by the University of California in Berkeley’ to host a speech by Milo Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart.com editor. 

According to Mr Beinart: "Antifascists call such actions defensive. Hate speech against vulnerable minorities, they argue, leads to violence against vulnerable minorities.

"But Trump supporters and white nationalists see Antifa’s attacks as an assault on their right to freely assemble, which they in turn seek to reassert."

On removing Confederate statues

What Mr Trump said

"Was George Washington a slave owner? Will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down statues to George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? ... Because he was a major slave owner," Mr Trump said.

The facts

Mr Trump's statements echoed an exchange on Monday night on Fox News between former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and the show's host, Martha MacCallum.

Mr Trump's comments also mirrored rhetoric from the far-right fringe. A post on Monday by the publisher of The Daily Stormer, a notorious neo-Nazi website, predicted that protesters are going to demand that the Washington Monument be torn down. 

Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, two founding fathers of the United States, were slave owners, but Robert E Lee was a general who fought for the Confederacy in the American Civil War, an organisation of states that fought to maintain a system of slavery.

On his 2016 election victory results

What Mr Trump said

 "I went through 17 senators, governors, and I won all the primaries."

The facts

Mr Trump won most of the Republican presidential primary contests. He lost in Ohio to John Kasich, the state governor. Texas Senator Ted Cruz beat Mr Trump in primaries in his home state and in Wisconsin.

Mr Trump also lost Puerto Rico's primary to Marco Rubio. Primary elections were also held on the Democratic side, none of which Mr Trump would have won.

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