It has been well documented that Joe Biden’s campaign announcement was based on a lie. From Breitbart:
What Biden said is completely untrue, as the transcript of Trump’s press conference about Charlottesville shows.
Trump was referring to protesters against the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, as well as to non-violent left-wing protesters against racism, and specifically excluded the neo-Nazis from “very fine people” (emphasis added):
From the Daily Wire:
When Trump’s comments were discussed by Tapper on “The Lead with Jake Tapper,” the CNN host, who is often highly critical of Trump, admitted that the president was not referring to neo-Nazis and white supremacists when he made his “very fine people” comment. Trump stated at the time:
And you had people — and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the White nationalists, because they should be condemned totally — but 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.
“He’s not saying that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists are very fine people,” Tapper said, adding that Trump was referring to protestors who did not want Confederate monuments removed and who were not a part of the neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
The Washington Examiner:
Trump made clear several times during the conference that he was referring specifically to those who had showed up to demonstrate against the statue’s removal and that he otherwise condemned the white supremacists.
What Trump said, as transcribed by the Los Angeles Times:“I’ve condemned neo-Nazis. I’ve condemned many different groups. But not all of [the people at the rally] were neo-Nazis, believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists, by any stretch. Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue, Robert E. Lee.”
A reporter yelled out, “Both sides, sir?”
Referring to the so-called “antifa,” which was also present at the rally wearing masks, throwing paint and spraying urine, Trump said, “Well, I do think there’s blame — yes, I think there’s blame on both sides.”
But Trump also said, “You have some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”
He again specified that he was not referring to white supremacists, saying, “You had people, and I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists” [emphasis added].
From RealClear Politics:
President Trump’s favorite meme-smith Carpe Donktum sliced together footage from Joe Biden’s campaign announcement video denouncing President Trump for allegedly referring to neo-Nazis as “very fine people” versus footage from President Trump’s actual statement from Charlottesville to demonstrate that Biden is taking Trump out of context.
So why post about it here? Well, for one thing, New Hampshire is the “First in the Nation” primary, so it is appropriate that a New Hampshire blog pushes back against Biden’s lie.
For another thing, to remind people that this is not the first time Joe Biden has played fast-and-loose with the facts and to say that hopefully this based-on-a-lie Biden campaign ends as badly as this one did back in 1988:
During his failed 1988 run, Biden lifted portions of a speech by United Kingdom Labour MP and Margaret Thatcher challenger Neil Kinnock. …
During an event at the Iowa State Fair, Biden mimicked entire portions of Kinnock’s speech from earlier in the year. At one moment, Biden repeated the line that he was the first “in a thousand generations” to graduate from college, gesturing to his wife in the exact same way Kinnock did, while also saying the same line about her education and lineage.
Biden would later acknowledge that he in fact did have relatives who attended college, directly contrasting the Kinnock lines.
