MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Tom Bossert, the White House homeland security adviser, has defended US President Donald Trump's statement on violence organized by white supremacists in Virginia, and said that the president avoided direct condemnation of the far-right group in order not to "dignify" the movement.
"The president not only condemned the violence and stood up at a time and a moment when calm was necessary and didn't dignify the names of these groups of people, but rather addressed the fundamental issue," Bossert said in the air of CNN on Sunday.
At the same time, Bossert said that he condemns "white supremacists and racists and white Nazi groups and all the other groups that espouse this kind of hatred and exclusion."
The rally in Charlottesville was organized by far-right nationalists on Saturday as a protest against the plans to remove a monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The rally led to clashes between the demonstrators and counterprotesters, culminating in a car ramming attack, which left one person dead and over 30 injured.
Governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe declared a state of emergency in the town.
Several US senators, including Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Cory Gardner and Michael Bennet, have also condemned Charlottesville violence as an act of "domestic terrorism."
