Charlottesville Mayor Draws ‘Direct Line’ To Trump On White Supremacists

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By Dave Goldiner August 14, 2017

Charlottesville Mayor Michael Signer placed the blame squarely on President Trump for the deadly hatred on display in the city, where thousands of marchers targeted Jews and blacks with racist slogans.

The outspoken mayor, who is Jewish, repeatedly pointed to Trump’s divisive campaign and his failure to distance himself from the radical right.

“Look at the campaign he ran,” Signer told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “Look at the intentional courting, on one hand, of all these white supremacists, white nationalists … and look on the other hand at the repeated failure to step up, condemn, denounce, silence, put to bed all of these different efforts, just like we saw yesterday. This isn’t hard.”

“You are seeing a direct line from what happened here this weekend to those choices,” Signer told CBS.

Signer also blasted Trump for failing to specifically condemn white supremacists in his response to the violence, which tepidly blamed “all sides.”

“What I did not hear in the president’s statement yesterday, as well-intentioned as it may have been, is I didn’t hear the words ‘white supremacy,’” he said. “And I think that it’s important to call this for what it is.”

Dave Goldiner is the Forward’s director of digital media. Dave is a veteran journalist who has spent two decades working at newspapers in the United States and Africa. A native New Yorker, Goldiner wrote for the New York Daily News, where he covered some of the biggest stories of our time, including the attacks of September 11, along with thousands of stories of hope and heartbreak. He also studied and worked in Southern Africa and has written for publications in South Africa and Zimbabwe. He holds masters degrees in journalism and public administration from Columbia University. Dave can be reached at goldiner@forward.com, or follow him on Twitter @davegoldiner

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