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Former president Donald Trump on Wednesday called a deadly neo-Nazi rally a “peanut” compared with recent protests of the Israel-Gaza war — his latest downplaying of a 2017 white-supremacist event in Charlottesville over which Trump, as president, drew massive blowback for declaring that there were “very fine people on both sides.”
Trump noted in an evening social media post that President Biden had cited the violent event in Charlottesville as a major motivation to run for president. “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,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Speaking to reporters after attending his criminal trial in New York in Thursday, Trump repeated the comments he wrote on social media and went further. He called the Charlottesville gathering “a little peanut” and added, “it was nothing compared — the hate wasn’t the kind of hate that you have here.”
Politicians of both parties have recently raised alarms about incidents of antisemitism amid mass demonstrations criticizing Israel. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) visited Columbia University on Wednesday as college campus protests spread and led to arrests.
But Trump’s comments were a remarkable framing of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, which even some allies considered a low point in his presidency. White supremacists had gathered in Charlottesville to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in August 2017; the event featured former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke as a speaker.
It turned deadly when a self-professed neo-Nazi drove his car into counterprotesters, killing one woman and injuring dozens of people.
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on his Wednesday post.
Police have said they are investigating some assaults potentially motivated by tensions over Israel’s war with Hamas, the Gaza-based militant group that launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7. But no deaths have been reported in connection with the protests against Israel in the United States.
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Trump, as president, said at the time of the Charlottesville gathering that while the rally featured “some very bad people … you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.” He reiterated his stance later, saying that both sides were to blame for the violence — and drawing rare rebukes from fellow Republicans as well as Democrats.
In his Truth Social post Wednesday, Trump criticized Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war from all sides — suggesting that Biden hates Israel, Jews and Palestinians and “just doesn’t know what to do.” Trump has previously drawn blowback for saying that any Jewish American who votes for Democrats “hates their religion” and hates Israel.
The Biden campaign’s rapid response director, Ammar Moussa, noted in a statement that Charlottesville rally attendees chanted “Jews will not replace us” and said “the American people are not going to be lectured” by someone who praised “fine people” there.
“He 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,” Moussa said.
Later on Thursday, the Biden campaign posted video on the social media website X of Trump’s comment after leaving the courtroom. The campaign also posted video of the Charlottesville gathering, including of men chanting, “Jews will not replace us.”