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Better late than never I suppose. Some seven years after it happened, Snopes has finally gotten around to fact-checking what would become the entire basis of Joe Biden’s presidency.
Biden has repeatedly claimed that he decided to run against Donald Trump because the former president supposedly praised the neo-nazis present at Charlottesville in 2017. At issue was a comment about “very fine people on both sides” that Trump made while reacting to the incident. Biden took that and made it the centerpiece of his campaign announcement, with the first words coming out of his mouth being “Charlottesville, Virginia.”
Since then, the idea that Trump “praised” neo-nazis has become canon on the left. Even in 2024, the White House still repeats the allegation. There’s just one problem: It was never true.
For reasons that weren’t immediately clear, Snopes randomly decided to set the record straight a week before the first presidential debate in 2024, and it has Democrats fuming.
We looked into these claims, and found that while Trump did say there were “very fine people on both sides,” meaning both the protesters and the counterprotesters, he also condemned neo-Nazis and white nationalists outright and said he was specifically referring to those who were there only to participate in the statue protest. We found the original clip on C-SPAN, and transcribed the relevant section below:
There’s a bit of the hand-wringing in response, including from Kat Abu, who was recently laid off from Media Matters.
Translation: Liberal Democrats are big mad that Snopes decided to tell the truth for once. Trump did unequivocally condemn neo-nazis during his presser addressing Charlottesville. The “very fine people” quote was not referencing the white supremacist rally that happened that evening, complete with the now infamous tiki torches. He was attempting to describe those who showed up during the day to protest and weren’t organized by Richard Spencer.
What’s going on? Why would Snopes decide to blow up Biden’s entire justification for being president in June of 2024? I’ll admit that I don’t have an answer to that. The timing is bizarre, and Democrats have been repeating that misleading narrative for years. This should have happened long ago.
Whatever the reason, it’s a gift to Donald Trump, who was no doubt going to be hit with Charlottesville at the debate on Thursday. He can now cite Snopes as a counter, and given the site has long had a left-wing bias, it can’t be easily dismissed.
