Trump is ‘glorifying a loser,’ SC congressman says of president’s Robert E. Lee remarks

S.C. Congressman James Clyburn on Sunday jabbed President Donald Trump for “glorifying” Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee while defending his remarks about a deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

While speaking with reporters Friday, Trump was asked about his comments after a white supremacist plowed his car into a crowd of counter-demonstrators at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in August 2017, to which he responded by saying there were “very fine people on both sides” of the protest.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who announced last week that he is running for president, cited Trump’s remarks in a video announcing his candidacy.

“If you look at what I said, you will see that that question was answered perfectly,” Trump told reporters Friday, in a clip that was aired Sunday on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. “I was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general. Whether you like it or not, he was one of the great generals.”

Clyburn, D-South Carolina, who is the House Majority Whip, spoke with Stephanopoulos during Sunday’s show.

“I think he’s expressing what’s in his heart,” Clyburn said of Trump. “The fact of the matter is, Robert E. Lee was a great tactician; (he) was not a great person. Robert E. Lee was a slave owner and brutal slave master. Thankfully, he lost that war. And I find it kind of interesting the president is now glorifying a loser. He always said that he hated losers. Robert E. Lee was a loser.

Even if you could get beyond that, at the end of the Civil War, Robert E. Lee asked all of his comrades to lay down their guns and to furl those confederate flags ... and put them in your attics,” Clyburn continued. “If the president is going to glorify Robert E. Lee, let’s at least be consistent about it.”

This story was originally published April 28, 2019 at 12:31 PM.