President Donald Trump, center, speaks as first lady Melania Trump and Vice President Mike Pence listen at the Congressional Picnic on the South Lawn of the White House, Thursday, June 22, 2017, in Washington. (Photo: AP)
President Donald Trump on Saturday condemned the violence in Virginia, which broke out when white nationalists groups clashed with Antifa. A state of emergency has been declared around Charlottesville.
“We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for,” President Trump tweeted. “There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!”
Democratic Gov. Terry McAullife declared a state of emergency prior to 11:00 AM EST, before the rally was scheduled to begin at Emancipation Park. Policed used megaphones to declare an unlawful assembly at about 11:40 AM EST and gave hundreds of neoNazis, Ku Klux Klans members and other white nationalists a five-minute warning to disperse.
They had gathered at Emancipation Park to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. They were met by equal numbers of counter-protesters, including Antifa, which was labeled by Homeland Security in New Jersey as a domestic terror group, Black Lives Matter and Princeton professor Cornel West.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that both the city of Charlottesville and the Albemarle County declared a local state of emergency.
First Lady Melania Trump sent out a rare tweet to echo her husband’s condemnation of the violence.
“Our country encourages freedom of speech, but let’s communicate w/o hate in our hearts,” she tweeted. “No good comes from violence.”
