Gov. McMaster says ‘hate-driven activity’ not welcome in SC after Trump blowback
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said Thursday that there’s no room in the state for white supremacy and other hate groups.
The governor, answering a question about the first presidential debate, told reporters he did not hear President Donald Trump’s response Tuesday night when Trump said, “Stand back and stand by” to the so-called “Proud Boys,” a far-right extremist group.
“I didn’t hear that,” McMaster told reporters, adding, “But I know we’re not interested in groups motivated by hate.”
“We condemn all such kind of activities that are motivated by hate,” the governor continued. “South Carolina’s, one of our slogans is smiling faces in beautiful places, and we want to keep it that way. This is a great state, and ... we want to have five million-plus proud happy South Carolinians, and any sort of extreme, hate-driven activity is simply not welcome in South Carolina.”
The president has faced public and private criticism after he refused to explicitly condemn white supremacy in the debate.
“Almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing,” Trump said in the debate hosted by Fox News.
Trump added, “I’m willing to do anything. I want to see peace. What do you want to call them? Give me a name.”
And the president was asked again later Wednesday about condemning white supremacy. “I’ve always denounced any form of any of that,” Trump said according to a White House pool report. He also told White House reporters that members of the “Proud Boys” group need to let police do their jobs.
“I don’t know who the ‘Proud Boys’ are,” Trump said according to the pool report. “Whoever they are they need to stand down.”
The White House sought to further clean up the remarks Thursday, telling reporters that Trump did not misspeak when he told moderator Chris Wallace, “Sure” in response to whether he would condemn white supremacy.
That is despite South Carolina’s U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, the Senate’s only Black Republican, saying he thought Trump misspoke.
“I think he misspoke,” Scott said Wednesday. “I think he should correct it. If he doesn’t correct it, I guess he didn’t misspeak.”
McMaster said Thursday he knows Trump has condemned white supremacy in the past when asked whether he should be stronger in his denouncement.
“But he can certainly speak for himself,” McMaster said. “But I know that he has condemned those things in the past.”
In 2019, after two mass shootings — one in El Paso, Texas, and one in Dayton, Ohio — that killed more than two dozen people, Trump condemned “racism, bigotry and white supremacy” and said hate has no place in the United States.
McClatchy DC reporter Michael Wilner contributed to this report.
This story was originally published October 1, 2020 at 4:54 PM.
