joining me now is the mayor of Charlottesville Virginia Michael signor
mr. mayor our thoughts and prayers are with Charlottesville today 19 others
were injured when that speeding car slammed apparently deliberately into the
counter-protesters what can you tell us about the condition of the victims well
there are you know a bunch of folks to the hospital I mean right now this is a
city that's praying and grieving and we have three people who died yesterday
didn't need to die but you know let me tell you about Charlotte's well this is
one of the world's truly great cities it is the privilege of a lifetime to be the
mayor of a city like this we're progressive tolerant modern city but
we're also a Southern one and we made a decision about a year and a half ago to
finally at long last tell deliberately the story of race in
our city to tell to tell the truth and that that effort put us on the map it
made us a target for a lot of these forces you've seen you've seen here but
I got to tell you our democracy has been through a lot in the last century our
city has been through a lot in last century we have come in this country
through McCarthyism segregation Jim Crow and we've come through stronger than
before that is what's going to happen now but we all need to stand together on
this new effort and that begins you know with the city like Charleston but it
should include the president you said you place blame for these terrifying
events quote right at the doorstep of the White House and the people around
the president unquote that's a that's a very strong charge to level why do you
think the President himself bears responsibility well look at the campaign
he ran I mean look at the intentional courting both on the one hand of all
these white supremacist white nationalist group like that anti-semitic
groups and then look on the other hand the the repeated failure to step up
condemn denounce silence you know put to bed all those different efforts just
like we saw yesterday this is not hard there's you know there's two words that
need to be said over and over again domestic terrorism and white supremacy
that is exactly we saw on display this weekend and we just aren't seeing
leadership from the White House we certainly are going to see leadership
from cities like Charleston for mayors from from leaders all around the country
left and right Republicans and Democrats if there's an issue that can unite this
country that this can be a turning point for the
democracy I think it just happened right now this weekend in Charlottesville you
know I to be honest it doesn't matter much to me whether he's already on the
sidelines I think of so many issues but the country is going to move ahead this
will be a turning point for the country to overcome this stuff just like we've
overcome these challenges in our past and I think it's happening right now as
we speak mr. mayor the President did speak out yesterday he
condemned the quote egregious display of hatred bigotry and violence on many
sides on many sides what was your response to that you know I sort of hung
my head I mean it it was more of a lot of the same that I think we've seen but
to be honest this is not about Donald Trump I mean oh we all talk about him a
lot I think this is about the United States of America it's about Virginia
it's about Charlottesville where the birthplace a lot of the democratic ideas
that got us here I'll tell you that you know these one door closes one door
opens we had the KKK come to our city also to challenge our osan approach on
telling the truth of that race that was on July 8th that was an awful then for
our city as well not nearly as violent as this one but a week later I was
leading a discussion with some of the leading democracy organizations in the
world that happened to be here in this city
Montpelier the home of James Madison Monticello the Miller Center for Public
Affairs organizations like that about how do we how do we uphold and and and
bring back the first principles of our democracy civility tolerance listening
deliberation religious toleration the First Amendment we're seeing an erosion
of all those core principles right now but we have an opportunity to kind of
hold them up together to pursue them to put them at the core of our of our
democracy right now and I believe in my heart that that will happen that people
will react to this darkness with a whole lot more light and that's beginning
right now mr. mayor I want to ask you about the suspect in the in the
vehicular homicide yesterday the anti-defamation league tweeted out a
picture of him at the rally yesterday saying that he seems to be a member of
the white supremacist group Vanguard America at the very least he's seen in
the photograph holding a shield do you know anything about that that
investigation is just starting right now I'm following some of that same news the
public there's a lot and you know in our investigations that starting
I will say that if those facts bear out it will just be more evidence of what
already was unbelievably disturbing here which was people who felt as if they had
free rein to come into a free city and terrorize our most vulnerable people I
mean this didn't just go through that open you know physical violence
yesterday it began the night before with several hundred of these people who came
to our town doing a torch parade yelling slogans you know against African
Americans against Jews up and down the campus of Thomas Jefferson at the
University of Virginia's this was a visual display of intimidation harken
back to the KKK and they went right up to the doorstep of a beautiful old
historic church where there were several hundred people interfaith gathered in
prayer to launch this weekend to try and give
strength to folks to this weekend so you had already a clash of this hatred and
this intimidation that's intolerance and this this terror coming right up on the
doorstep of people who were who were trying to bring love against hate so you
know I mean it sounds like this gentleman don't you don't want to jump
to conclusions for law enforcement authorities do but I hope that if the
facts are there that we vigorously prosecute this in the case of domestic
terrorism this cannot be tolerated in free society we we stand on the rule of
law and we stand on our on our norms and our ideas about toleration so it has to
there has to be a stop put to this violent white supremacy mr. mayor thank
you for your time this morning and best of luck to you and the city of
Charlottesville you'll be in our thoughts and prayers thanks ray