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Kirstjen Nielsen Re-Ups Trump’s ‘Both Sides’ Charlottesville Rhetoric

Department of Homeland Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen echoed President Donald Trump’s comments about the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, in which he claimed the violence was the fault of “both sides.”

During the Aspen Security summit, Nielsen was asked about the president’s comment that there were “very fine people on both sides” of the rally, where a counter-protester was struck and killed by a man who was allegedly “infatuated” with Nazis.

“Both sides were aggressively pitted against each other,” she told NBC’s Peter Alexander, offering the solution to “prepare” and detect the “warning signs.”

Then, she added: “It’s not that one side is right and one side is wrong.”

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

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