On Wednesday afternoon, President Donald Trump spoke to reporters outside the White House in his first on-camera comments since a chaotic presidential debate the previous evening. In one of many attention-grabbing exchanges during the debate, Trump said that the violent far-right group known as the Proud Boys should “stand back and stand by,” which sounded to many like a tacit call to readiness on the group’s part. On Wednesday, Trump claimed that he doesn’t even know who the Proud Boys are — but for starters, the debate discussion (about white supremacy) in which their name emerged made their nature obvious. Furthermore — he offered strangely specific comments about this group that he supposedly doesn’t know almost anything about.
He might be lying. The Proud Boys are a violent gang of white supremacists that roam around the country and violently harass and sometimes attack their political opponents. Trump said that the group should “let law enforcement do their job,” as if he actually does know that the group operates under the pretext of fighting back against left-wing violence. (In reality, the Proud Boys are violent, terroristic instigators.)
Trump said:
‘I don’t know who the Proud Boys are. I mean, you’ll have to give me a definition, because I really don’t know who they are. I can only say, they have to stand down, let law enforcement do their work. Law enforcement will do the work more and more. As people see how bad this radical liberal Democrat movement is, and how weak, our law enforcement’s gonna come back stronger and stronger, but again, I don’t know who Proud Boys are. Whoever they are, they have to stand down; let law enforcement do their work.’
Watch his comments below:
Here's Trump lying and saying "I don't know who the Proud Boys are." He doesn't denounce them. pic.twitter.com/B8QDfH17zI
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 30, 2020
Journalist Christopher Orr observed that Trump has made similar dismissive comments in the past after getting confronted about his ties to white supremacists. In 2016, he claimed that he was not familiar with Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, but Trump had publicly spoken about Duke as early as 1991.
Trump knows the drill. In Feb 2016, it was "I know nothing about David Duke. I know nothing about white supremacists."
(His public statements on Duke go back to at least 1991, and in 2000 he called him "a Klansman," "a racist" and "a bigot" when Duke joined the Reform Party.) https://t.co/6zfix4xP0D
— Christopher Orr (@OrrChris) September 30, 2020
At one point on Wednesday outside the White House, Trump also seemed uneasily fine with white supremacists in general. A reporter asked Trump if he “welcomes” the support of white supremacists, and his first response, before he said anything else, was not “no.”
He said:
‘I want law and order to be a very important part, it’s a very important part of my campaign, and when I say that, what I’m talking about is law enforcement, the police have to take care, and they should stop defunding the police.’
Asked if he denounces white supremacy in particular, Trump said that he “always denounced any form of any of that.” What a remarkably vague statement from the president of the United States.
Watch below:
Q: White supremacists clearly love you. Do you welcome that?
TRUMP: "I want law and order to be a very important part, it's a very important part of my campaign" pic.twitter.com/s6DF4XxM7c
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 30, 2020
It shouldn’t be so difficult to get the president of the United States to denounce white supremacy. Besides that issue, Trump raised other ones during the debate, when he also said that he is “urging my supporters to go in to the polls and watch very carefully, because that’s what has to happen,” which sounds like an endorsement of physical intimidation of opponents.