Jimmy Kimmel on Charlottesville, Trump: ‘All He Had to do Was Condemn the Nazis’ (Video)

“This weekend in Virginia, the worst people in the United States went to the hardware store, bought tiki torches, lit ’em up and marched in Charlottesville,” late-night host says

Jimmy Kimmel had harsh words about both the recent violent outbreak in Charlottesville, Virginia, and President Trump’s reaction to it in his opening monologue on Monday night.

“We went into the weekend worrying about the fact that Kim Jong Un vowed to start a war by the middle of this month. And we come out of it wondering if our president is cutting eye holes out of his bedsheets,” the late-night host said.

“As you know, this weekend in Virginia, the worst people in the United States went to the hardware store, bought tiki torches, lit ’em up and marched in Charlottesville,” he continued. “A non-violent protester was killed by a white supremacist and so the president — who is the president, by the way — went on television. He started with a prepared statement, and then he had to throw in ‘on many sides.’

“Let’s not lay all the blame on the Nazis and the Klan here, there were people who marched against them.”

On Friday, a group of white nationalists gathered to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert. E. Lee. They were met with counter-protestors, and the clashing of the two groups led to violence, which only intensified Saturday. When a vehicle driven by a white nationalist activist plowed into a crowd Saturday at the rally, Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal from Virginia, was killed, and 19 others were injured. More than 30 were hurt in total as a result of events at the rally.

In his response, the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host went on to say of Trump’s lack of formal statement, “Then for two days he had no further comment. The one thing he decides to be quiet about is this! Of course, everyone went nuts because there were not ‘many sides,’” he stressed.

“The protesters were shouting Nazi slogans. They were carrying Nazi flags. One of them killed a young woman and injured dozens of other people with his car. There were two sides — not many — and one of those sides had Nazis on it

“All he [Trump] had to do was condemn the Nazis. Which shouldn’t have been difficult! It’s not exactly a controversial stance, not like we asked him to come out against puppies.”

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/897223558073602049

Kimmel pointed out that a number of notable global figures offered their sentiments before the U.S. president did.

“Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, called the rally ‘evil’ and ‘disgusting.’ You understand what that means? That means Germany is taking a stronger stance against Nazis than we are … and they invented them.

“After much prayer and reflection, the president this morning decided to take the difficult step of condemning Nazis and the Klan.

“Which is big for him. This is the sort of thing that could alienate his base,” Kimmel quipped.

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