As he continues to face fallout for his delayed reaction to the “Unite the Right” march held in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, some of President Trump’s supporters are now attempting to make a false equivalency between the neo-Nazi marchers and counter-protesters.
One of those Trump defenders appeared on CNN Tuesday morning. Brunell Donald-Kyei, the former chair of outreach for Trump, along with Democratic strategist Symone Sanders. And Donald-Kyei wasted no time trying to blame both sides of the protests:
“My condolences as a fellow American to those who passed as well as those hurt. What I’ll say is the president has come out expressly against this violence, but also too, Miss Symone, there were people on the left who were pouring urine on journalists — all types of violence.
“I’m waiting for people to come out and condemn that as well. You can’t just condemn one and not the other. you condemn it across the board.”
That led host Chris Cuomo to step in and tell Donald-Kyei:
“Hold on. Brunell, the two sides, the many sides argument. Help us understand it better from your perspective, because I just want to be clear, do you see those who went there to oppose Nazis as the same as the Nazis?”
Donald-Kyei responded:
“I believe that first of all, you had a situation where you had people marching.The people saying white supremacists were marching and they had a permit and then you have these counter protesters come in, and any time you have a situation where you’ve got groups that are on extreme sides, like I said there should be –”
Cuomo then used logic to make the Trump supporter look ridiculous:
“See, that’s the point I don’t get. Are those extreme sides to you? Do you see somebody who opposes white supremacists, who want everybody on this panel to be eradicated from the United States as being equally as extreme as the white supremacists?”
Ms. Donald-Kyei again fell back on her talking point:
“What I’m saying is that I don’t believe that in black supremacy or white supremacy or Hispanic supremacy. I believe we should address any kind of hatred and extreme across the board. It shouldn’t be something that we are letting one get away with it more than any other.”
In other words, just like Trump, Brunell Donald-Kyei mistakenly thinks that the hatred and violence we saw in Virginia came from “many sides.” But the white nationalists are the ones responsible for the deaths of three people, and no false equivalency will ever change that fact.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8JMGDKB3y0
Featured Image Via CNN Screengrab
