Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee admitted Wednesday that the impromptu press conference in which President Trump re-asserted that liberal counter-protesters bore some blame for the Charlottesville violence was “not his best moment.”
“I’ll be the first to the tell you, I thought the Tuesday press conference was not his best moment, not because he repudiated anything he had said before when he called out these hideous groups that I find disgusting and despicable,” Huckabee told Fox News. “And I think Donald Trump did a good job on Monday of making that very clear as well, as well as he did on Saturday before we knew who it was who had killed and murdered that young woman.”
In his initial remarks Saturday, Trump refused to condemn by name the neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups behind the rally in Charlottesville, which became violent in clashes with counter-protesters. Amid bipartisan political pressure, Trump did name the groups, calling them “repugnant,” on Monday, only to walk back those remarks Tuesday, saying there is “blame on both sides.”
Huckabee said he did not understand why the media and Trump opponents were “camped out on this, as if it’s the only thing that we ought to be taking about.”
“The president wasn’t responsible for what happened in Charlottesville,” Huckabee continued. “He did not create it and he repudiated it as strongly as I guess he could.”
Huckabee added that most of the voices who were unhappy with Trump would never approve of the president.
