Former US president says Charlottesville rally was ‘small peanut’ compared to pro-Palestinian student protests.
Former US President Donald Trump has claimed that pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses are more hateful than the infamous 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Speaking to reporters before his hush-money trial in New York on Thursday, Trump said the Unite the Right rally was “nothing” compared to the hatred expressed at student demonstrations against the war in Gaza.
“We have protests everywhere,” Trump said as he left the Manhattan courtroom where he is being tried over alleged payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.
“Charlottesville was a little peanut, and it was nothing in comparison – and the hate wasn’t the kind of hate you have here, which is enormous hate,” Trump said.
Trump’s comments follow a Truth Social post on Wednesday in which the Republican presidential candidate called the Charlottesville rally “‘peanut’ compared to the unrest and anti-Israel protests taking place across our country.”
The White House reprimanded Trump for his comments.
“The denigration of the anti-Semitic and white supremacist vitriol on display in Charlottesville is disgusting and divisive,” deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement.
US President Joe Biden, who is expected to face Trump in November’s presidential election, has repeatedly cited the Charlottesville rally as a pivotal moment in his decision to run against Trump in 2020.
During the event on August 11, 2017, white supremacists demonstrated against the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, chanting slogans such as “They will not replace us!” and “Jews will not replace us!”
A day later, James Alex Fields Jr., a self-proclaimed white supremacist, intentionally drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters near the rally site, killing Heather Heyer.
Trump’s response to the rally, including saying that “both sides” were to blame, marked one of the most controversial moments of his presidency.
There were no similar incidents of violence during the pro-Palestinian protests at several US universities, including George Washington University, Yale, New York University (NYU), Columbia University and the University of Texas.
However, reports of harassment and threats against Jewish students have drawn condemnation from officials including Biden, House Speaker Mike Johnson, New York Mayor Eric Adams and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Footage shared on social media last weekend appeared to show activists telling students to “go back to Poland” and that October 7 “will be every day for you” – referring to Hamas attacks Israel, in which 1,139 people were killed.
Columbia University’s Chabad, a branch of an international Orthodox Jewish movement, also reported that protesters told Jewish students: “You have no culture,” “All you are doing is colonizing” and “Go back to Europe.”
On Sunday, a group of student activists representing the protesters released a statement distancing themselves from “seditious individuals” and condemning “any form of hatred or bigotry.”