Watching the president’s impromptu Trump Tower press conference yesterday afternoon was like sitting in the backseat of a car piloted by a drunk driver who was careering toward the bad end of a one-way street.
Trump quickly ran out of feet to jam into his mouth after he equated the bad behavior of “both sides” in the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend.
Making the rally for the statue of Robert E. Lee sound like a quaint gathering organized by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the equivocator-in-chief spoke out for some of the demonstrators who apparently have been badly smeared by the fake media.
“You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats – you had a lot of bad people in the other group too,’’ Trump said.
But this “things are very complicated” argument quickly falls apart when you watch the videotape of a car that is turned into a weapon by a racist demonstrator. There is no nuance here, just blood.
In times of national crisis, a president is supposed to unite the country, lower the volume, and tell us that things are going to work out during a fireside chat.
Instead, Trump is recklessly pouring gasoline onto our fire. I’m desperately looking for my mute button.