Posted on 09/30/2020 6:24:00 PM PDT by robowombat
Trump says Proud Boys should 'stand down' after backlash to debate comments BY BRETT SAMUELS - 09/30/20 03:05 PM EDT
Trump says Proud Boys should 'stand down' after backlash to debate comments
President Trump on Wednesday said he didn't know about the Proud Boys but that the group should "stand down" amid intense criticism of his remarks at the previous night's presidential debate that the far-right group should "stand back and stand by."
Trump on Wednesday faced blowback from a number of Republicans who said he should have forcefully denounced white supremacy when he was given the chance.
"I don't know who the Proud Boys are," Trump told reporters when departing for a campaign trip to Minnesota. "I can only say they have to stand down. Let law enforcement do their work."
Trump, however, again tried to equivocate on the matter, saying "the problem is on the left" while railing against antifa, a loosely affiliated collection of left-wing protesters.
Pressed on whether he would denounce white supremacists, including those who support him, Trump tried to shift the conversation to his support for law enforcement before claiming he has "always denounced any form of that."
"But... Joe Biden has to say something about antifa," he added.
FBI Director Christopher Wray in a hearing earlier this month pointed out that antifa refers to an ideology, not an organization.
Trump's comments about how the Proud Boys should "stand back and stand by" came after debate moderator Chris Wallace asked if Trump would be willing to condemn white supremacists. The president said "sure," but when pressed to actually do so, he did not.
It immediately became one of the most talked-about moments of the debate and a headache for those tasked with defending his remarks.
The group immediately celebrated Trump's comments. One social media account affiliated with the self-described "white chauvinist" organization added "stand back and stand by" to the Proud Boys logo.
The Proud Boys are known for their white nationalist pandering, blatant anti-Muslim rhetoric and close ties with more publicly violent extremists.
The group gained national prominence for its involvement in the 2016 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., and it has staged multiple counter-rallies aimed at disrupting the anti-police brutality protests that have swept the country since the police killing of George Floyd in May.
Republican lawmakers and conservative allies widely panned Trump's debate comments, saying the president should have clearly denounced white supremacists.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called it "unacceptable" not to condemn white supremacy.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the lone Black Republican senator, said he believed Trump "misspoke."
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) added that Trump should have "made it very clear that there's no room for people on the far left or the far more far right."
The president's surrogates at the White House and on his campaign spent the morning struggling to defend his comments about the far-right group. They argued that Trump has in the past denounced white supremacist groups, and pointed to his initial response of "sure" as a sign that he did so again on Tuesday.
Trump aides struggle to defend Proud Boys remarks at debate Anti-Defamation League CEO: Proud Boys see Trump comment as 'call to... Trump has previously condemned white supremacists, but typically only after facing pressure to do so. He spoke out after a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, last year, and last week pledged to have the Ku Klux Klan prosecuted as a hate group.
But he has also equivocated between different groups, including after the 2017 violence in Charlottesville, when he said "you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."
Updated at 3:19 p.m.
From the inkwell of the Synagouge of Satan. But, this proves PT won the debate.
Disappointed in Sen. Scott, but someone needs to educate him on this.
Ever notice despite all the work Trump has done for him Tim Scott never misses a chance to take a shot at Trump
Only because that's how the left has portrayed them.
It'd be nice if the same folks condemn antifa and BLM for their arson, vandalizing, rioting, looting, and murdering.
Biden lost the debate, so they seize on the lie that sticks...that Trump "refused to condemn" white supremacists, and run with it to distract the public from the loss, and yet again label Trump as a racist.
I almost got kicked off a Corvette Forum tonight for responding to some Moron who pushed this Trump supports the American Proud Boys who are White Supremacists bullshit.
“Let law enforcement do their work.”
Unfortunately law enforcement isn’t. Now what?
Maybe when John James gets to the Senate, he can bring Scott up to speed...
Trump had no idea who the Proud Boys were, I didn’t know either he will find out AND take it back explaining to the American people who they REALLY ARE!!
I don’t understand how Proud Boys can be labeled white supremacists. I didn’t know anything about them so today I did a search and read quite a bit about them. Their membership includes blacks and their principles include being anti-racist. From what I read today it sounds like a fake accusation.
What white supremacism is, is a construct for the Left to have this boogeyman to justify their left-wing, anti-American activism.
You know, one of the things that kills me is that Nazism and white supremacism is reviled - as it should be, but Communism is romanticized, elevated to some spiritual cause, and is portrayed as completely harmless. You have Che Guevera shirts, Katie Couric kissing Castro on the cheek when he was allowed to go to the UN to give speeches...I mean, when does the double-standard and hypocrisy end?
I am going to send an email to Senator Scott explaining who the Proud Boys are I think we should ALL do the same!!
Any future debate bring this up
What hasn’t been examined is Biden’s conduct during his term as VP and his reaction when Obama used the Bully Pulpit to create racial division during the Zimmerman trial.
When as a result of Obama’s inflammatory racist comments suggesting a racist murder. Where Obama’s remarks were interpreted by black gangs suggesting retribution for a racial incident went on attacking non blacks innocently entering “hoods” and attacking and sometimes killing them like the Australian from Melbourne; Christopher Lane, here on a college scholarship in Duncan Oklahoma who was murdered while exercising on one of Duncan’s streets.
White Supremacy is the future.
When an out of state white antifa woman burns a restaurant in a black neighborhood in the color of black community, to me it is just as damaging if not more than if a happy Nazi did it in plain view.
Watch what they do not what they say
The racist supremacists are on the left, good grief. Trump and the others still have not understood the white supremacist Obama coup on black people
Great idea!
Molotov Joe is standing by BLM and Antifa.
The Left argues like children.
so almost every day for months, far-left BLM/Antifa/Sunrise/Marxist/anarchist Dem voters riot, loot, burn, pull down monuments, attack police and civilians, kill some, hound people at their homes, etc etc
YET
President Trump is asked to...AGAIN... disavow “white supremacist” groups??? Portland and Kenosha given as examples by Wallace??? WTH.
Biden, on the other hand, was not asked to DISAVOW the far-left BLM/Antifa/Sunrise/Marxist/anarchist Dem mobs!
he was merely asked if he’d made any phone calls to Dem officials who are allowing/facilitating/promoting the rioting etc and he could only say he wasn’t in public office or something!
Here is the real reason: Biden only gets 74 percent of the black vote in aleft wing you gov poll!
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