News

Mother of Charlottesville victim: ‘I will not’ speak to Trump

Getty Images

The mother of the 32-year-old woman killed amid the violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., said on Friday she has not spoken with President Trump — and she is not planning to. 

ABC News’s Robin Roberts asked Susan Bro, the mother of Heather Heyer, if she has spoken to the president in the wake of her daughter’s death. 

“I have not and now I will not,” Bro said on “Good Morning America,” adding she had received dozens of missed calls from the White House on Wednesday, which was the day of her daughter’s funeral. 

{mosads}

“I’m not talking to the president now. I’m sorry, after what he said about my child. It’s not that I saw somebody else’s tweets about him. I saw an actual clip of him at a press conference equating the protesters, like Ms. Heyer, with the KKK and the white supremacists,” she said.

Bro was referring to a press conference the president gave at Trump Tower on Tuesday in which he laid blame on “both sides” for the violence in Charlottesville and said not everyone attending the white supremacist rally, which was organized to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, was a white supremacist. 

There were some “very fine people” on both sides of the protest, Trump said.

Heyer was killed on Saturday when a car, allegedly driven a man with white supremacist ties, rammed into a crowd of people protesting the rally. Nineteen others were injured. The alleged driver, James Alex Fields Jr., was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

Trump dedicated a tweet to Heyer on Wednesday, saying “she will long be remembered by all.” 

“You can’t wash this one away by shaking my hand and saying ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m not forgiving for that,” Bro said.

The White House had previously said it was trying to find a time to set up a phone call between Trump and Bro.

Trump has face a barrage of bipartisan criticism for his remarks, which many interpret as defending neo-Nazis and other white supremacists.

Bro told NBC News on Thursday she’s received death threats since her daughter’s death. 

“They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well, guess what? You just magnified her,” Bro said at Heyer’s funeral on Wednesday.

Tags

Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.