Warren slams Trump over Proud Boys comments

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) slammed President Trump on his refusal to denounce white supremacist militia groups during Tuesday night’s presidential debate. 

Trump was directly asked by Fox News’s Chris Wallace to denounce white supremacist groups that have aligned themselves with him. Instead, Trump told the group Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” and deflected attention to left-wing movements. 

“You didn’t have to watch the whole thing, all you had to see is that little when he was asked to denounce white supremacy,” Warren, a former presidential hopeful, told CNBC on Wednesday. “And what did he say? He told the Proud Boys to stand by. That should do it for every person in this country. 

“That is not the America we want to be,” she added.

“That is not the America we want to be.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren criticizes President Donald Trump, who refused to openly denounce White supremacist groups during Tuesday night’s presidential debate. #deliveringalpha https://t.co/CSZkx3uhQc pic.twitter.com/m90zUo54NJ

— CNBC (@CNBC) September 30, 2020

The Proud Boys, a group the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group, describes itself as “a pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists” and has been tied to violent protests, often in support of the president.

The group celebrated the president’s obscure comments, making promotional T-shirts with the phrase “stand back and stand by.” Trump campaign aides have struggled to defend the president’s comments, and the president has yet to go on the record directly denouncing white supremacy.