CHICAGO – President Biden on Monday evening during his DNC speech spotlighted a debunked claim that former President Donald Trump spoke favorably of neo-Nazis in 2017 following the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally.
"We're in a battle for the very soul of America. I ran for president in 2020 because of what I saw in Charlottesville in August of 2017. Extremists coming out of the woods carrying torches, their veins bulging from their necks, carrying Nazi swastikas and chanting the same exact antisemitic bile that was heard in Germany in the early '30s," Biden said just after 10:30 CT on Monday night.
"When the president was asked what he thought had happened, Donald Trump said, and I quote, 'There are very fine people on both sides.' My God, that's what he said. That is what he said and what he meant. That's when I realized … I could not stay on the sidelines. So I ran," Biden continued, citing the debunked claim about Trump.
Biden has repeatedly and emphatically cited the riots in Charlottesville, Virginia, for spewing "antisemitic bile" and claiming Trump spoke favorably of neo-Nazis.
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"With those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it," Biden said in 2019 when announcing his candidacy.
"In that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime," he added at the time.
Left-leaning fact-checking website Snopes published a piece in June, however, debunking the claim that Trump called neo-Nazis "very fine people."
"While Trump did say that there were ‘very fine people on both sides,’ he also specifically noted that he was not talking about neo-Nazis and White supremacists and said they should be 'condemned totally.' Therefore, we have rated this claim 'False,'" Snopes wrote at the time.
The protests in Charlottesville that year, which played out across two days in August, included White nationalists descending on the city who were met by hundreds of counter-protesters. The protests devolved into violence, including three deaths and dozens of injuries stemming from a car plowing through people and other attacks.
The protests were condemned by both Republicans and Democrats at the time, with Trump saying such protests and violence have "no place in America."
"We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides," Trump said in August of that year. Trump added days later in a press conference that he condemned the "egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence" and came under fire from Democrats for his remarks that there was "blame on both sides" and "very fine people, on both sides."
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The Snopes fact check aligns with Trump's longstanding argument that the remarks were taken out of context before they quickly spread on social media and were promoted by the left and members of the media.
The fact check and Trump repeatedly saying the comments were taken out of context, however, has not swayed Democrats to drop the talking point. Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign last week also posted about the protests on the 7th anniversary of the rally.
"Seven years ago today, white supremacists and neo-Nazis marched on Charlottesville, chanting racist and antisemitic bile and killing an innocent woman. This is who Donald Trump calls ‘very fine people,’" the Kamala HQ account posted on X along with a video.
Biden took the DNC's stage on the first evening of the convention at about 11:30 p.m. ET and wrapping up after midnight. He spoke after a handful of other high-profile Democrats delivered solo speeches before the audience, including short surprise remarks from Harris.
"I want to kick us off by celebrating our incredible President Joe Biden who will be speaking later tonight," Harris said of President Biden, adding "we are forever grateful to you."
"This November, we will come together and declare with one voice as one people, 'we are moving forward with optimism, hope and faith,'" she said.
"When we fight, we win."
Biden's speech comes after he dropped out of the presidential race last month following mounting concerns over his mental acuity, and as elected Democrats called on the president to pass the mantle to another, younger candidate. Shortly following his exit from the race, Biden announced his endorsement of Harris to take over the race.
Harris rose to the top of the ticket, and will formally accept the Democratic Party's nomination on Thursday when she delivers the convention's final speech.
As the DNC kicked off on Monday, anti-Israel and other left-wing protesters descended on the Windy City where they slammed Biden and Harris for their support of Israel as it continues battling Hamas since October.
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"The March on the DNC 2024" drew thousands of activists who marched in the city before briefly escalating the protests Monday evening, including trying to knock down security fencing surrounding the convention before police were seen detaining offenders.
