Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Wednesday hit out at President Donald Trump for refusing to condemn white supremacists and telling the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” during their debate.
During the debate, moderator Chris Wallace asked Trump if he was "willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence in a number of these cities as we saw in Kenosha and we've seen in Portland?"
Trump did not condemn white supremacists, and instead said that leftist groups were to blame for violence. When Biden mentioned the Proud Boys, a hate group of self-avowed “western chauvinists” who regularly engage in sexist and racist rhetoric, Trump said: “The Proud Boys. "Stand back and stand by.”
"My message for the Proud Boys and every other white supremacist group is cease and desist," Biden told reporters while in Ohio on Wednesday, according to CBS News.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum told CNN on Wednesday that Trump declined to condemn white supremacists because he doesn’t like to “say something bad about people who support him.”
Trump told reporters on Wednesday: "I don't know who the Proud Boys are. I mean, you'll have to give me a definition. 'Cause I really don't know who they are. I can only say they have to stand down, let law enforcement do their work. Law enforcement will do the work.”
When asked specifically about white supremacy, Trump said: "I've always denounced any form of that."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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