Vice President Mike Pence not only defended President Donald Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, while speaking during a visit to the South American country of Colombia, but he reminded the media that there was violence among the Antifa agitators, who went there to disrupt the “Unite the Right” rally.
Pence spoke out during a Sunday joint news conference with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, Politico reported.
“I will say I take issue with the fact that many in the national media spent more time criticizing the president’s words than they did criticizing those that perpetrated the violence to begin with,” Pence said.
“We should be putting the attention where it belongs,” Pence added, “and that is on those extremist groups that need to be pushed out of the public debate entirely and discredited for the hate groups and dangerous fringe groups that they are.”
The vice president also noted that the Trump administration is not letting white supremacists escape criticism.
“We have no tolerance for hate and violence from white supremacists, neo-Nazis or the KKK. These dangerous fringe groups have no place in American public life and in the American debate, and we condemn them in the strongest possible terms,” Pence said.
“The president also made clear that behavior by others of different militant perspectives are also unacceptable in our political debate and discourse,” Pence said, hinting that the Antifa groups are also culpable for the violence.
Indeed, much of the violence that occurred in Charlottesville was started by the left-wing Antifa groups that went to the city to confront the “Unite the Right” rally-goers.
Pence also insisted that the clash in Charlottesville did not reflect “the good and decent people of Charlottesville or of America.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.