Snopes fact checkers ADMIT Trump never called neo-Nazis ‘very fine people’—Biden based his 2020 campaign on this lie

"No," Snopes announced finally, "Trump did not call neo-Nazis and white supremacists 'very fine people."

The claim, as Snopes explained, was that after a controversial August 11-12, 2017 Unite the Right rally in Richmond, Virginia, which cost leftist activist Heather Heyer her life, Trump said that there the neo-Nazis who were protesting that day were "very fine people." However, as conservatives and those in the GOP have been saying for seven years, he never said that.

The protest in Richmond that day was organized to protest the removal of a Confederate statue in that city, with those advocating for their removal saying that honoring the dead military men, such as General Robert E. Lee, who fought for the South during the Civil War was racist, and those opposed to their removal advocating for the preservation of history.

On August 15 of that year, Trump was asked about it. He said that those who were protesting the removal of the statue had a point about the preservation of history and questioned whether the removal of Lee's statue would lead to the removal or desecration of statues of founding fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, America's first and third presidents, respectively, which it has.

He said "you had people, that were very fine people— on both sides. You had people in that group— Excuse me, excuse me," he said as a reporter interrupted him. "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."

"George Washington and Robert E. Lee were not the same," a reporter shouted out.

"George Washington was a slave owner," Trump countered. "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 statues to George Washington? And how about Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him?"

"I love Thomas Jefferson," the reporter replied.

"Okay, good," Trump said. "Are we going to take down the statue? Because he was a major slave owner. Now we're going to 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. Now, in the other group, also, you had some fine people, but you also had troublemakers, and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats. You had a lot of bad people in the other group, too," he said before taking more questions from the press.

A reporter asked "are you saying the press has treated white nationalists unfairly?"

"No," Trump said plainly before going on to say exactly who he thought was being treated unfairly, which were those who had protested the removal of the statue the night before the infamous rally.

"There were people in that rally, and I looked the night before," he said. "If you look, there were people protesting very quietly the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee. I'm sure in that group, there were some bad ones. The following day, it looked like they had some rough, bad people, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, whatever you want to call them.

"But you had a lot of people in that group that were there to innocently protest and very legally protest because, you know, I don't know if you know, they had a permit. The other group didn't have a permit. So I only tell you this there are two sides to a story. I thought what took place was a horrible moment for our country—a horrible moment. But there are two sides of the story."

He condemned the neo-Nazis and the white supremacists, as he'd done many times before, upheld the right of citizens to peacefully protest the removal of historical monuments, and for that he was painted as saying that neo-Nazis were "very fine people." At least it only took Snopes seven years to issue the fact check.

During the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden harped on the Charlottesville incident and Trump's following comments. Biden didn't mention the controversy over the statues, which was a big deal a the time and was taking place in many locations across the country. Instead, he repeated the false claim that Trump had said neo-Nazis were "fine people." In fact, Biden used this false claim as the reason for launching his presidential campaign.

In his campaign announcement, he said "And that's when we heard the words of the President of the United States that stunned the world and shocked the conscience of this nation. He said there were 'some very fine people on both sides.' 'Very fine people on both sides'? With those words, the President of the United States assigned a moral equivalency between those spreading hate and those who have the courage to stand against it. In that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I've ever seen in my lifetime."

"I wrote at the time," Biden continued, "that we're in the battle for the soul of this nation. So that's even more true today. We are in the battle for the soul of this nation. I believe history will look back on four years for this President, and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time. But if we give Donald Trump eight years from the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are and I cannot stand by once that happened. The core values of this nation are standing in the world, our very democracy, everything that is made America America is at stake. That's why today I'm announcing my candidacy for President of the United States."

But Biden's words, and his campaign for president, were based on a falsehood. Trump never said that neo-Nazis were fine people, he said peaceful protesters in Richmond who sought to preserve history were fine people, as were those who disagreed, peacefully, with that belief. Of the leftist agitators and the white supremacists, Trump said they were "rough, bad people."