Snopes, a well-known fact-checking website often criticized for perceived bias towards Democrats and left-wing causes, has finally acknowledged that former President Donald Trump did not refer to neo-Nazis as “very fine people” after the Charlottesville protests in 2017. This correction comes nearly seven hours after the misinterpretation — frequently referenced by the Biden campaign — was initially spread.
The misconception arose after then-President Trump addressed the media following the incident where far-left and far-right protesters clashed in Charlottesville during a demonstration against the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue. While responding to reporters’ questions, Trump criticized the mainstream media for its one-sided coverage of the day’s events, which overlooked the presence of left-wing rioters armed with clubs who confronted the group after the police controversially disbanded the rally, leading to the violent clash. One counter protester, Heather Heyer, was killed after being run over in the ensuing chaos.
During his remarks, then-President Trump repeatedly condemned extremists, stating they need to be “condemned totally.” He also emphasized that some individuals were present merely to protest the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee and were not involved in any violence or affiliated with extremist groups. Additionally, he pointed out that far-left activists were also present and engaged in violence, a fact that was well-documented but largely overlooked by mainstream media outlets.
“Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name,” Trump said at the time.
After another question, Trump emphasized once again and clearly that he was not talking about extremists. “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally,” he stressed.
Rather than quote he full transcript, left-wing pundits, media outlets and Democratic politicians have for years falsely claimed that Trump called neo-Nazis and white supremacists “very fine people.” President Biden has claimed that the debunked quote was what compelled him to run for office, while the lie has been repeated ad-nauseam throughout the 2024 campaign.
Finally, on June 20, more than seven years after the hoax was first launched, Snopes issued a new fact check that, of course, was ignored by the same people and media outlets who have been falsely accusing Trump. “On Aug. 15, 2017, then-President Donald Trump called neo-Nazis and white supremacists who attended the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, ‘very fine people,” reads the claim, which was finally graded as “false.”
“We looked into these claims, and found that while Trump did say there were ‘very fine people on both sides,’ meaning both the protesters and the counterprotesters, he also condemned neo-Nazis and white nationalists outright and said he was specifically referring to those who were there only to participate in the statue protest,” Snopes wrote.
“In sum, while Trump did say that there were ‘very fine people on both sides,’ he also specifically noted that he was not talking about neo-Nazis and white supremacists and said they should be ‘condemned totally.’ Therefore, we have rated this claim ‘False.’”
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