Another Reversal: Trump Now Says Counterprotesters Also To Blame For Charlottesville

Updated at 7:26 p.m. ET

In a stunning reversal from comments he made just one day prior, President Trump said on Tuesday "there's blame on both sides" for the violence in Charlottesville, Va.

On Monday, Trump specifically called out the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists in a choreographed statement read at the White House — but that was two days after his initial statement on the protests, for which he was criticized for not condemning those groups and instead cited violence "on many sides."

On Tuesday, Trump was back home at Trump Tower in New York City and took questions from reporters in an impromptu, highly combative press conference that was expected to be limited to statements by the president and members of his Cabinet about infrastructure.

Instead, he returned to equating the demonstrators — who came to the college town to protest the planned removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general, donning Confederate flags and swastikas, some carrying guns and shields, chanting "blood and soil" and "Jews will not replace us" — with counterprotesters.

"I'm not putting anybody on a moral plane. What I'm saying is this — you had a group on one side, and you had a group on the other, and they came at each other with clubs and it was vicious and it was horrible and it was a horrible thing to watch," Trump said. "But there is another side. There was a group on this side, you can call them the left, you've just called them the left, that came, violently attacking the other group. So you can say what you want, but that's the way it is."

Trump also pointed out that the "Unite the Right" rally had received a permit from the city for their demonstration, while "the other group didn't have a permit."

"So I only tell you this, there are two sides to a story. I thought what took place was a horrible moment for our country. A horrible moment. But there are two sides," the president said.

"OK, what about the alt-left that came charging ... at the, as you say, the alt-right? Do they have any semblance of guilt? Let me ask you this, what about the fact they came charging, that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do," the president added. "As far as I'm concerned, that was a horrible, horrible day."

And he also equated Confederate statues with ones of slaveholding Founding Fathers and former presidents.

"Are we going to take down statues of George Washington? How 'bout Thomas Jefferson? What do you think of Thomas Jefferson? You like him? OK, good," Trump argued. "Are we going to take down the statue because he was