Trump's Response To Barcelona Van Crash Will Need To Be A Major Change From Charlottesville
On Thursday, Aug. 17, a van crashed into a crowd in Barcelona's Las Ramblas district. It took some time to hear a response from Trump on the Barcelona van crash, but he eventually addressed it via a tweet. Trump has been under consistent criticism for how he reacted to recent tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which a white nationalist plowed his car into a group of people protesting racism and bigotry. Ultimately, a young woman named Heather Heyer was was killed and many others were injured.
This occurred amid a large march organized by white supremacists, which was attended by the KKK and neo-Nazis. Trump blamed "both sides" for the violence and has been lambasted by a wide array of people for drawing a moral equivalence between neo-Nazis and counter-protesters. Accordingly, his response to Barcelona comes under a lot of scrutiny. His tweet on the incident did not contain any controversial language, but it wouldn't be unlike him to add more thoughts on the matter later. If he's not careful with his choice of words, it will incense a wide number of people. In the past, Trump has accused of having a double standard regarding terror attacks committed by jihadists versus right-wing extremists, in the sense he's typically been quicker to condemn Muslim extremism.
If Trump turns the incident in Barcelona into an attack on Islam, as he's done with other terror attacks, it's conceivable he will be criticized along these lines once again. Elite Daily reached out to the White House for a comment on this, but did not hear back at the time of publication.
The crash in Barcelona is being treated as a terror attack and at least one person was killed and 32 others injured, according to the Associated Press.
First Lady Melania Trump responded to the incident on Twitter before her husband.
Trump responded to the incident in Barcelona at 2 p.m. ET.
As far as rhetoric goes, this is a straightforward, uncontroversial response from the president. But knowing him, another tweet could be coming in the very future. We shall have to wait and see.
