President Joe Biden repeated the “very fine people” hoax on Monday in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, just two days after an assassin attempted to kill former President Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania and very nearly succeeded.
The hoax is the false claim that Trump praised neo-Nazis who rioted in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. In fact, Trump said that the neo-Nazis should be “condemned totally.” The hoax has been repeatedly debunked by this news outlet, and was also recently debunked by Snopes. Critics of Biden say that the hoax causes many people to hate and fear Trump, and that his constant use of the hoax has inflamed political divisions to the point of political violence.
Biden attempted to strike a conciliatory tone in the interview, saying that he should not have used the word “bullseye” in a telephone call last week with donors. But he then went on to repeat the inflammatory “very fine people” hoax (from NBC transcript):
LESTER HOLT: You were in — in Delaware when this happened. What was your first reaction?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: My first reaction was, “My God. This is” — look, there’s so much violence now and the way we talk about it. I mean, the whole notion that there is this — there’s — there’s no place at all for violence in politics in America. None. Zero. And — we’ve reached a point where it’s — it’s become too commonplace, not assassinations, but to talk about it.
For example, you know, the January 6th — you know, the attack on the Capitol, the — I — I — Lester, I got in this race early on in 2020 — for the 2020 race. I wasn’t gonna run again because I’d lost my son. I didn’t — you know? And — until I watched what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Those folks coming out of the woods with torches, carrying swastikas, singing the same Nazi bile that was accompanied by this Ku Klux Klan and a young woman was killed. And — and it was a bystander. And — the president — then president was asked, “What do you think?” He said, “The very fine people on both sides.” Not fine people on both sides. No excuse. Zero.
Lester Holt did not correct Biden, who went on to repeat another hoax: he claimed falsely Trump that had warned of a “bloodbath” if he lost the election. Trump was speaking about the automotive industry, not about political violence.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
