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Pence attempts to clarify Trump's 'many sides' comment

By LOUIS NELSON

Asked to explain President Donald Trump’s condemnation of “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides” in the wake of a deadly attack against protesters gathered to oppose white supremacists marching Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, Vice President Mike Pence recalled previous, unrelated incidents in which law enforcement officers were targeted at protests.

White supremacists gathered in Charlottesville on Saturday for a “unite the right” rally, ostensibly to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Rally-goers soon clashed with the scores of counter-protesters demonstrating to oppose the presence of white supremacists in the city, violence that eventually culminated in the death of one counter-protester and the injury of 19 others when a man allegedly drove his car into a large crowd.

Trump, speaking from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, did not specifically decry the white supremacist groups whose rally had sparked the violent clashes but instead condemned the violence and hate he attributed to “many sides.” The remarks were seen as inadequate by many, including several prominent Republicans, who called on the president to be more forceful in his comments.

Pence, whose own comments were more explicit in their condemnation of the white supremacists than those of the president, sought Sunday evening to explain Trump’s remarks under pressure from NBC’s Peter Alexander.

“I think the president yesterday spoke into a national moment, words that the American people needed to hear, that we condemn acts of violence, acts of hatred,” Pence said in an interview from Colombia that was taped Sunday and aired Monday morning on NBC’s “Today” show.

“He said 'on many sides.' Name those sides. What are the sides?” Alexander replied.

“Well, look, as I said today, we condemn in the strongest terms the hate and violence advocated by groups like white supremacists, neo-Nazis and their ilk,” Pence said, prompting Alexander to follow up by asking, “but that's one side. What’s the other side when he says ‘on many sides?’”

“As you look throughout the course of recent years, we've seen protests turn violent,” Pence said. “We've seen fringe groups use peaceful protest environment to bring violence, in some cases against police officers to tragic results.”

Alexander countered that no such violence had occurred Saturday and that only one side had sought to harm the other, to which Pence replied that the “full weight” of the federal government would be brought to bear on the individual responsible.

Although Pence did not reference a specific incident in which officers were harmed, his remark seemed to recall a protest last summer in which a protest in Dallas against police brutality ended with a gunman opening fire on officers, killing five of them and injuring nine others. The shooting occurred during a summer marked with nationwide protests against a string of controversial deaths of African-American individuals by law enforcement officers.