Don Lemon slammed President Donald Trump on Monday for defending his 2017 comments that there were “very fine people on both sides” of violent clashes between white supremacists and protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The rally was organized by white supremacist and neo-Nazi organizations, yet Trump claimed that the violence ― which included the car attack that killed protester Heather Heyer ― involved people who were defending a statue of Robert E. Lee.
Lemon offered a correction.
“I’m gonna be very clear here: Charlottesville was not about a statue,” Lemon said. “It was about hate.”
Lemon then broadcast footage of white supremacists marching through the community chanting “Jews will not replace us” as they carried torches.
“Everyone knows ― we all heard ― what went on in Charlottesville,” Lemon said. “There were not very fine people on both sides.”
He also blasted Trump for his attempt at revisionist history:
“You can’t whitewash white nationalism with a bogus argument that the white supremacists and neo-Nazis who openly paraded their hate on the streets of Charlottesville were protesting the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, who waged war on the United States, a brutal slave owner, who fought for the continued enslavement of millions of African-Americans ― millions of people who looked like me.”
See Lemon’s full monologue here: