President Trump On Charlottesville: 'Blame On Both Sides'

BALTIMORE (WJZ/AP) -- President Donald Trump returned insistently Tuesday to his assessment that "there is blame on both sides" after being roundly criticized for such comments following the deadly violence last weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Trump's remarks on his home turf at Trump Tower in New York City followed a more deliberate statement he made Monday in Washington. Reading from prepared remarks inside the White House, he said then that "racism is evil" and branded members of the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists who take part in violence as "criminals and thugs."

That statement followed sharp and unrelenting criticism, including from many top Republican lawmakers, of his more general Saturday remarks bemoaning violence on "many sides."

Yet during an impromptu press conference Tuesday, Trump seemed to undo what he said a day earlier.

He praised his own controversial Saturday statement, even pulling it from his suit pocket to read it again.

The President said he neglected to denounce White Supremacist groups during his press conference on Saturday from New Jersey, because he "did not have all the facts," and some facts are "still unknown."

Trump spoke to members of the press, saying the 'alt-left' bears some responsibility for violence in Charlottesville, 'nobody wants to say that.'

"That was a horrible, horrible day," says the President.

"You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent, and nobody wants to say that but I'll say it right now. You had a group that came charging in, without a permit, and they were very, very violent," he said.

The President also addressed the conversations many cities are facing on the removal of Confederate monuments.

He asked if people were willing to take down statues of Robert E. Lee, if statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, who were both slave owners, would be taken down as well.

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