Trump Can't Help It: He's Back to Claiming "Both Sides" Were Responsible for Violence in Charlottesville

We’ve seen this pattern over and over with Donald Trump. He says something grossly offensive or blatantly racist and/or sexist, there’s a huge public outcry, then he insincerely walks it back and his people jump in front of the cameras and do damage control.

Then, a few days or weeks later, he’ll go right back and say the same damned thing again that got him in trouble. You can tell it just eats away at his gargantuan ego to admit to any sort of mistake or offense, and he just can’t help himself. He has to repeat the grotesque statement that offended everyone, because he can’t stand to lose that all-important sense of dominance.

And he’s doing it again. When it was reported he would sign a congressional resolution calling on him to denounce white supremacist groups, I knew right away this was going to provoke him into one of his tortured backflips, and sure enough, today he resurrected his claim that “both sides” were responsible for the violence in Charlottesville.

He can’t help himself. He’s ruled by his narcissism.

Trump was characterizing his side of a conversation on Wednesday with Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina, during which Mr. Scott, the Senate’s only black Republican, said he confronted the president on his claim that “both sides” were responsible for the violence that followed a torchlight protest against the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee.

“Especially in light of the advent of Antifa, if you look at what’s going on there, you know, you have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the anti-fascist group that clashed with neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Mr. Trump has offered constantly shifting statements about Charlottesville, alternately condemning the hate groups and declaring a moral equivalence between them and the counter-protesters. On Thursday, speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Mr. Trump reverted to the unapologetic stance he took in a news conference last month at Trump Tower.

“Now because of what’s happened since then, with Antifa, you look at really what’s happened since Charlottesville — a lot of people are saying — in fact, a lot of people have actually written, ‘Gee, Trump might have point,” Mr. Trump said. “I said, ‘You’ve got some very bad people on the other side, which is true.’”

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