Former Charlottesville mayor praises Biden announcement

Mike Signer, a former mayor of Charlottesville, Va., who served during the deadly August 2017 white supremacist rally, praised former Vice President Joe Biden’s Thursday 2020 White House announcement, including its condemnation of the rally.

As the Jewish mayor of Charlottesville serving when @realDonaldTrump made his contemptible remarks giving safe harbor to neo-Nazis, I’m grateful to @JoeBiden for centering his campaign on our own Thomas Jefferson’s “idea of America”: dignity for all. https://t.co/ukxCLWPKGi

— Mike Signer (@MikeSigner) April 25, 2019

Biden’s announcement video depicts scenes from the “Unite the Right” rally, including marchers bearing tiki torches and chanting slogans including “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.”{mosads}

The video calls the rally a “defining moment” for America and praises the counterprotesters who met it, one of whom, Heather Heyer, was killed when a white nationalist drove his car through a crowd. James Fields Jr. was convicted of first-degree murder for the car attack and also pleaded guilty on federal hate crimes charges earlier this year.

Biden in the ad also condemns President Trump for defending the rallygoers as including “very fine people” on both sides. Biden has invoked the rally before, telling Martin Luther King Jr.’s son in January that the Charlottesville rally is an example of how “the hate that cut your dad down is still nurtured by those forces of darkness.”