FALSE: “Trump Refused to Condemn White Supremacy”

I really don’t get the characterization I’m seeing allover social media that Trump refused to condemn white supremacy other than the insistence of #OrangeManBad. There was no time for refusal — Wallace moved on too quickly.

Let’s start first with the word, “refused” which is to indicate or show that one is not willing to do something.

A reasonable person can not look at this exchange — and I don’t mean in only reading the words because the way the words are written fails to account for how people were talking over each other (don’t get me started about that! Having done competitive speech and debate in high school I found their behaviors to be appalling on all parts even if Trump was by far the worst!) and say that Trump refused to condemn white supremacy.

NPR reports the exchange as follows and this link has the footage of the first part of the exchange as well (note: this exchange is at best incomplete as it fails to report how they talk over each other and that Trump uses Proud Boys as an example in response to Biden mentioning them — Biden who shouldn’t have been speaking at the time):

WALLACE: You have repeatedly criticized the vice president for not specifically calling out antifa and other left-wing extremist groups. But are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha^* and as we’ve seen in Portland? Are you prepared to specifically do that?

TRUMP: Sure, I’m prepared to do that. But I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing. If you look, I’m willing to do anything. I want to see peace.

WALLACE: Then do it, sir.

BIDEN: Do it. Say it.

TRUMP: You want to call them? What do you want to call them? Give me a name, give me a name, go ahead — who would you like me to condemn?

WALLACE: White supremacists, white supremacists and right-wing militia.

TRUMP: Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what: Somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left. Because this is not a right-wing problem — this is a left-wing problem.

BIDEN: His own FBI director said … antifa is an idea, not an organization. Not militias.

TRUMP: Oh, you gotta be kidding.

BIDEN: His FBI director said that.

WALLACE: We’re done, sir.

BIDEN: Everybody in your administration.

TRUMP: When a bat hits you over the head, that’s not an idea. Antifa is bad.

BIDEN: Everybody who tells you the truth in your administration has a bad idea.

TRUMP: Antifa is a dangerous, radical group, and you ought to be careful with them. They’ll overthrow you.

If you’re one of the people who is insistent that “Trump refused to condemn white supremacy” I would ask you to please point to out to me which words above were his refusal to do so? What is the time code in the linked video in which he made such refusal?

What I saw watching this was, as a starting point, confusion because people were talking over each other. People want to say that Trump showed all the bad behavior but you can see Biden interrupting here when Wallace is directing the question to Trump. Don’t take that as a defense of Trump — it isn’t. But I for one find it quite annoying that Wallace clearly was biased here. While I was watching the debate I shared with some friends my frustration when Wallace failed to acknowledge Trump was accurate that Biden was also interrupting after Wallace reprimanded Trump.Trump was correct: Wallace should have reprimanded both candidates. Trump doing it more than Biden doesn’t mean Biden wasn’t wrong when he did it. I find our general attitude as a people to dismiss the wrongs of one person because the other is more wrong to be part of the reason we are in this mess. Consider the “lesser of two evils” mentality: when you vote for the lesser of two evils you’re still condoning and voting for something evil and what we saw Wallace do was precisely that. He’s insistence on reprimanding Trump and not acknowledging the accuracy that Biden was also interrupting means he condoned Biden’s lesser transgression. It’s no wonder we had two grumpy old men debating over the future of our country.

Regardless, Trump said he would condemn them and accurately pointed out that the left is causing more problems right now, then he asked for a label for how to call out those he was supposed to condemn and Wallace and Biden were again talking over each other which Wallace again didn’t call out. Biden then specifically says Proud Boys and Trump tells them to stand back and stand by before returning to his earlier point about the problems with the violence from the left. As the exchange devolved again between Biden and Trump, Wallace moved on saying “we’re done sir” before Trump gave any sort of condemnation of white supremacy on the whole.

They’re are two main points I want to make here.

Firstly, people are asserting Trump refused to condemn white supremacy and subsequently using this as a justification for their assertion he is racist. Whether Trump is or isn’t racist, there was no refusal in that exchange to condemn white supremacy. If the point was to get him to do so, Wallace should have shut Biden up and redirected the conversation to Trump and made him say it OR made him give an actual refusal. Wallace did neither. I would add, for the record, Trump absolutely has clearly and explicitly denounced white supremacy for years. Here’s one example from the first year of his term. In case that isn’t sufficient, here’s a compilation of 20 different times he’d done it since before he was elected.

There are many reasons to not like Trump. Inferring from that exchange that he condones white supremacists because you’re fixated on the media’s insistence that “Trump refused to condemn white supremacy” misses the point he was making which, as usual, he didn’t make as well as he could have.

Which leads to my second point. Trump was accurate to point out that right now the violence is largely coming as part of or associated with the Floyd riots, about which I’ve made posts about previously and something I urge the left to consider seriously unless they want 4 more years of Trump.

Now I get it — 93-95% IS mostly peaceful protests. AND it is also true that 5-7% of the protests — over 500 of them — works out to 5+ a day over three months that are not peaceful, the largest percentage of which are BLM adjacent events.That was Trump’s point: the problem right now is NOT the white supremacists and no matter how much you hate him, this should be considered rationally imo.

Between 24 May and 22 August, ACLED records more than 10,600 demonstration events across the country. Over 10,100 of these — or nearly 95% — involve peaceful protesters. Fewer than 570 — or approximately 5% — involved demonstrators engaging in violence. Well over 80% of all demonstrations reported during this period are connected to the Black Lives Matter movement or the COVID-19 pandemic.The following is quoted directly from the ACLED summary.

The Black Lives Matter Movement

Nearly 73% of all demonstrations over this period are associated with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.²

• Since 26 May, the day after George Floyd was killed by police, ACLED records over 7,750 demonstrations associated with the BLM movement across more than 2,440 locations in all 50 states and DC
  • States with the most events: California (819), New York (430), Florida (380), and Illinois (331)
• The vast majority of these events — more than 93% — involve non-violent demonstrators
• Approximately 9% of all demonstration events associated with the BLM movement — or nearly one in 10 events — have been met with intervention by police or other authorities
  • Of these interventions, government personnel used force³ in more than half — at least 54%
  • The majority of these events are reported in California, Oregon, and New York
  • Authorities have also targeted journalists covering BLM demonstrations: ACLED records over 100 events of government violence against the media during demonstrations in 31 states and DC
  • State intervention and use of force in demonstrations has increased relative to this time last year
• Non-state actors are becoming more aggressive and are increasingly engaging demonstrators
  • Since Floyd’s killing, ACLED records over 100 events in which non-state actors intervened in demonstrations, including militia groups as well as individual attackers
    • Individual perpetrators — sometimes linked to hate groups like the KKK — have launched dozens of car-ramming attacks targeting demonstrations around the country
  • ACLED records activity by over 20 distinct militia groups across the US during this period, and non-state actors are engaging in demonstrations more often relative to this time last year
  • Armed individuals are also becoming more common at demonstration events; in some cases they are present without engaging in the demonstrations — claiming to ‘keep the peace’ if not openly intimidate perceived ‘enemies’ — while in others they have engaged directly in demonstrations associated with the BLM movement. In total, over 50 such incidents are recorded since late May
• The BLM movement has prompted a series of counter-protests, and many have turned violent
  • Since May, over 360 counter-protests have been reported around the country
    • Of these, more than 40 — nearly 12% — turned violent
  • Counter-protests are growing and increasingly turning violent relative to this time last year

Globally, in the weeks following Floyd’s death, ACLED records at least 8,700 demonstrations in solidarity with the BLM movement across 74 countries.⁴

I hope this gives you pause and has you consider insisting Trump refused to condemn white supremacy but if it doesn’t, I’d love to understand that also.

* I want to note the inaccuracy of the question itself and Wallace's characterization that the people in Kenosha patrolling and using guns to protect the citizens, at least the night of the Rittenhouse shooting, as white supremacists because there's video (2:13-2:25) of them explicitly stating support for the BLM.