Donald Trump has attacked who he referred to as the "alt-left" protesters in Charlottesville, claiming that blame should be shared by both sides.
His comments appeared to be a doubling down on his initial statements following the reports of violence in which he did not directly condemn the Klu Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists but said that the blame was on "many sides".
"There are two sides to every story," said Mr Trump during his press conference intended to introduce a new infrastructure programme.
He did read another statement approximately 48 hours after the deaths of Heather Heyer, a counter-protester, and two Virginia State police officers Berke MM Bates and H Jay Cullen in which he specifically said "racism is evil" and condemned those groups.
"You had a group on one side that was bad and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent," he said as he repeatedly called the gathered press "fake media".
Mr Trump said multiple times that many of the protesters were there to "innocently...legally" oppose the removal of Civil War Confederate General Robert E Lee and that not all of them were neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
He added that the media "would know [that] if you're honest reporters, but you're not".
The "statement I made on Saturday was a fine statement" said Mr Trump.
There were protesters on the "other side that came violently charging" at the protesters wanting to keep the statue in place. "Do they have any semblance of guilt?," Mr Trump asked.
He accused the media of "changing history, changing culture" for treating the people who were not neo-Nazis or white supremacists in the crowd holding the rally to keep the statue up "very badly".
Mr Trump once again denounced those groups but repeated there were "bad people" on both sides of the violence.
