Former Vice President Al Gore urged President Donald Trump to "try again" with his response to the bloody violence that erupted in Charlottesville, Va. on Saturday as white nationalists fought with counter-protesters, saying his remarks that "many sides" were to blame gave a moral equivalence to a resurgent white supremacist movement.
"On the off chance that my words here could reach President Trump, I would say, 'Mr. President, for the sake of our country, I would urge you to try again," Gore told an audience of hundreds of progressive activists at the Netroots Nation conference in Atlanta.
Trump condemned the protests that resulted in at least three deaths and prompted the governor to declare a state of emergency, but he didn’t criticize the white nationalist rally, which featured anti-Semitic chants and neo-Nazi slogans. Instead, he called for unity among “all races, creeds and colors.”
Gore said Trump should “give more thought to what it means to have a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi movement marching and creating this kind of hatred.”
“The country would be better served if the president would come back before the people,” he said, "and think of a more thoughtful and appropriate statement about how we can understand what’s going on in America - and how we can go forward."
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