Celebrities were outraged Tuesday after President Donald Trump held a press conference in New York City to condemn the neo-Nazis and white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, and in which he slammed reporters in the room for misreporting facts about the deadly rally.
“There was no way of making a correct statement that early,” the president said, defending his initial remarks made on Saturday before all the facts had been revealed in the incident which left one woman dead and another 19 wounded when a man deliberately drove his car into a crowd of protesters. “Unlike you and unlike the media, before I make a statement, I like to know the facts.”
Trump also blasted the violent “alt-left” demonstrators, asking if they had “any semblance of guilt” in the incident.
“I am not putting anybody on a moral plane,” he added. “You had a group on one side and the other and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and horrible.”
Within minutes, celebrities were melting down on social media.
The official Twitter account for Comedy Central’s The Daily Show tweeted: “Today is the day Donald Trump became president of the Confederacy.”
Singer and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, actor Josh Gad, and comedian Chelsea Handler called for President Trump to be removed from office — Handler, again, specifically advanced the idea of a military coup.
Still, other celebrities, including actor Jeffrey Wright, actor Patton Oswalt, Modern Family producer Danny Zuker, and actress Jamie Chung, implied that President Trump either supports Nazis or is sympathetic to them.
Below is a roundup of other celebrity reaction to Trump’s press conference:
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