Vice President Mike Pence defended Donald Trump for his comments following the violence in Charlottesville, telling reporters in Venezuela the president, “clearly and unambiguously" condemned what happened.
Pence also said the administration has "no tolerance for hate and violence, white supremacists or neo-Nazis or the KKK," according to a report in the Hill.
Trump has come under fire for blaming the violence on hatred and bigotry "on many sides," and for not calling out white nationalists or describing as terrorism the Charlottesville violence that killed one person and injured 34 others.
The White House later said Trump was condemning all forms of "violence, bigotry and hatred" when he spoke about the violence, including "white supremacists, KKK, neo-Nazi and all extremist groups."
Pence said Trump "also made clear that behavior by others of different militant perspectives are also unacceptable in our political debate and discourse."
The VP criticized the media for focusing on Trump's statement.
“I take issue with the fact that many in the national media spent more time criticizing the president’s words than they did criticizing those that perpetuated the violence to begin with,” Pence said.
“We should be putting the attention where it belongs, and that is on those extremist groups that need to be pushed out of the public debate entirely and discredited for the hate groups and dangerous fringe groups that they are," he continued.
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