Trump Says Gaza Protests Are More Hateful Than Charlottesville Nazi Rally

Amid his ongoing criminal hush-money trial, former President Donald Trump called the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which led to the death of a woman, a “peanut” in comparison to anti-war protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“We’re having protests all over,” Trump told reporters outside of the courtroom on Thursday, referring to the pro-Palestine demonstrations taking place across the country. He added, “[Biden] was talking about Charlottesville. Charlottesville was a little peanut! And it was nothing compared — and the hate wasn’t the kind of hate that you have here.”

This is the second time this week Trump has downplayed the deadly Charlottesville rally, where clashes broke out between the white nationalists and counter-protesters during a Unite the Right rally, and a white supremacist killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer when he rammed his car through a crowd of counter-protesters. Two days after the tragedy, then-President Trump argued that both sides were to blame for the violence and declared that there was “very fine people on both sides.” His remarks at the time drew backlash.

“Crooked Joe Biden would say, constantly, that he ran because of Charlottesville. Well, if that’s the case, he’s done a really terrible job because Charlottesville is like a ‘peanut’ compared to the riots and anti-Israel protests that are happening all over our Country, RIGHT NOW,” wrote Trump Wednesday on his social media platform.

Ammar Moussa, the Biden campaign’s rapid response director, said in a statement that “the American people are not going to be lectured to by the guy who called white supremacists very fine people after they chanted ‘Jews will not replace us’ and killed a woman.” He added that Trump “was never in touch with the vast majority of the American people, but his years down in Mar-a-Lago have him even more unhinged heading into 2024.”

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