The 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, ended with a woman dead after one of the attendees drove into a group of counter-protesters. But in Donald Trump's opinion, it was nothing compared to the pro-Palestinian protests currently sweeping US college campuses. In a Truth Social post Wednesday followed by comments to reporters Thursday, the former president called the Charlottesville rally a "peanut" in comparison. Trump noted that President Biden has cited the 2017 rally as a big reason he decided to run for president, Axios reports. "Well, if that's the case, he's done a really terrible job because Charlottesville is like a 'peanut' compared to the riots and anti-Israel protests that are happening all over our Country, RIGHT NOW," Trump wrote Wednesday night.
Speaking to reporters while leaving court Thursday, Trump repeated the phrase. "Charlottesville was a little peanut" and "nothing compared" to the "kind of hate that you have here," he said, referring to the pro-Palestinian protests happening "all over." The Washington Post calls Trump's comments a "remarkable reframing" of the rally, which brought white supremacists together to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and featured former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke as a speaker. The White House responded Thursday, the Hill reports. "Minimizing the antisemitic and white supremacist poison displayed in Charlottesville is repugnant and divisive," said the deputy press secretary in a statement. (More Donald Trump stories.)