Republican strategist Scott Jennings left former Clinton administration official Maria Cardona searching for an explanation Sunday after he questioned her assertion that former President Donald Trump inspired the violent 2017 clash in Charlottesville, Virginia.
One person was killed and at least 19 injured in Charlottesville when left-wing counter-protesters tried to break up a rally to protest the planned removal of statues honoring prominent Confederate figures in August 2017. Cardona claimed that Trump “spurred on and inspired” the protest and the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol building.
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“Let‘s remember Charlottesville. Let‘s remember January 6th. All of those events ended in tragedy and all of those events were spurred on and inspired by the words that came out of the former president‘s mouth,” Cardona claimed, prompting Jennings to ask, “How did he inspire Charlottesville?”
“He went out there and said both sides are good people —” Cardona asserted before Jennings cut in, saying, “That was after the riot. You said he caused the riot.”
After the riot, Trump addressed the incident after giving remarks on infrastructure in New York City.
“Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group — excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures as you did — you had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name,” Trump said during an exchange with reporters. “George Washington was a slave owner. Was George Washington a slave owner? So will George Washington now lose his status, are we gonna take down — excuse me — are we gonna take down statues of George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him? Okay good. Are we gonna take down the statue? Cause he was a major slaveowner. Now are we gonna take down his statue? So you know what? It’s fine. You’re changing history, you’re changing culture, 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.”
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Cardona then called out Jennings over a “skeptical” look on his face.
“Yes, I’m skeptical that he caused Charlottesville,” Jennings responded.
“You know it‘s true. Yes, I do think that he did cause Charlottesville, because those people —” Cardona claimed, before Jennings asked, “Who is causing the rallies on campuses?”
Since the Oct. 7, 202, attack by the radical Islamic terrorist group Hamas that killed over 1,200 people in Israel, demonstrations at multiple universities and colleges have occurred in which anti-Israel protesters occupied buildings, chanted a slogan that has connotations of wiping out Israel and blocked Jewish students from parts of campus.
“Those people that were marching —” Cardona maintained, before Jennings asked again, “Who’s causing the rallies on the streets of New York?”
“Let me finish. Let me finish,” Cardona snapped. “Those people that were marching were marching in support of one person. They were marching in support of Donald Trump.”
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.