Trump downplays deadly Charlottesville rally by comparing it to campus protests over Gaza war
By COLLEEN LONG
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump on Thursday claimed a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia was “nothing” compared to the college campus protests that have sparked around the country over the Israel-Hamas war. Trump’s comments mark an attempt to downplay one of his biggest electoral vulnerabilities — his history of courting extremists, including the ones who would go on to assault the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — while exploiting divisions in Biden’s Democratic coalition over Israel’s war in Gaza.