In the final ten minutes of President Donald Trump's chaotic press conference inside Trump Tower in New York City, he made a series of news-making statements about blaming "both sides" for violence in Charlottesville, Va., white nationalism, the state of race relations, and even the infrastructure plan the conference was supposed to be about.
1) "What about the alt-left that came charging in—excuse me—what about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt? Let me ask you this. What about the fact that they came charging with clubs in the hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do."
2) "I'm not finished. I'm not finished, fake news."
3) "You had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent, and nobody wants to say that. But I'll say it right now."
4) "I've condemned neo-Nazis. I've condemned many different groups. But not all of those people were neo-Nazis. Believe me. Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch."
5) "This week it's Robert E. Lee. I notice that Stonewall Jackson's [statue is] coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week, and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You really do have to ask yourself, when does it stop?"
6) "I think [race relations have] gotten better or the same—look, they've been frayed for a long time, and you can ask President Obama about that, because he'd make speeches about it."
7) "I think there's blame on both sides. You look at both sides. I think there's blame on both sides, and I have no doubt about it, and you don't have any doubt about it, either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say it."
8) "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 re-naming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name."
9) "George Washington was a slave-owner. Was George Washington a slave-owner? So will George Washington now lose his status? Are we going to take down—excuse me. Are we going to take down—are we going to take down statues of George Washington? How about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him?"
10) "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, OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly."
11) "But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest, and very legally protest, because—I don't know if you know. They had a permit. The other group didn't have a permit."
12) "I actually think Democrats will go along with the infrastructure [bill]."
13) "I thought that the statement put out—the mother's [of victim Heather Heyer] statement, I thought, was a beautiful statement. I must tell you, it was something that I really appreciated. I thought it was terrific, and really, under the kind of stress that she's under and the heartache that she's under, I thought putting out that statement to me was really something I won't forget."
14) "I own a house in Charlottesville. Does anyone know I own a house in Charlottesville? Oh boy—it's going to be—it's in Charlottesville. You'll see. It is the winery. I mean, I know a lot about Charlottesville. Charlottesville is a great place that's been very badly hurt over the last couple of days."