Charlottesville, Va. Mayor Michael Signer told CNN on Sunday that so far as he is concerned, President Donald Trump "has blood on his hands," according to The Huffington Post. Signer was referring to the violent killing of a 32-year-old female counter-protester who was picketing a white supremacist rally that was taking place in that city. The suspect, James Alex Fields Jr., 20, deliberately ran into the woman at a high rate of speed, killing her and leading to a city-wide manhunt that inadvertently resulted in the crash of a police helicopter.

Two Charlottesville police officers died in that crash.

The connection to Trump

Signer tied the three tragic deaths to President Trump, whose travel ban was perceived of as "bigoted" by many observers, because of the litany of racist statements he made and political positions that he took during the 2016 campaign. Mr. Trump singled out Mexican immigrants during the campaign, describing them as "criminals, rapists and murders" and calling for the erection of a wall along the border to keep them out of the country. Furthermore, President Trump issued an executive order prohibiting Muslim immigrants to the United States "indefinitely," and another one requiring the deportation of immigrants who don't have a green card and have been in the United States for decades, even if they have children who were born in the United States.

Racist GOP Convention

Additionally, the 2016 GOP Convention, at which Trump was nominated as the Republican Party' s Presidential candidate, had its issues that pointed to racism. When the Cleveland convention first started, there were huge signs directing people to "White only" restrooms. The signs later were taken down, but not before nationwide media outlets captured the pictures and the story.

All of these things, coupled with the hatred and bigotry that ensued afterward, served as a basis for Signer's comment that Trump "has blood on his hands." Signer also was highly critical of Trump for his "failure to step up and condemn, denounce, silence, put to bed" the efforts of the white supremacists and their racist bigotry, according to The Huffington Post on Sunday.

David Duke weighs in

Meanwhile, renowned white supremacist and former Imperial Wizard of the notoriously racist Klu Klux Klan (KKK), David Duke, weighed in during an interview with the Indianapolis Star on Saturday. Duke was among those present at the rally, and he stated that his objective and that of the supporters is to "fulfill the promises of Donald Trump," according to the Huffington Post on Sunday. Among those promises was the one to "take the country back." And Duke made it emphatically clear that "That’s what we gotta do,” according to the Huffington Post.

An Ominous warning

Duke ended his interview with a warning to Trump. In response to Trump's call for the nation to condemn "all that hate stands for" in the wake of the violence in Charlottesville, Duke advised Trump to "take a good look in the mirror," (Huffington Post - Sunday).

Then Duke reminded the President that he was "put" into the presidency by "White Americans" as opposed to "radical leftists." To many observers, it would appear that Duke just proved Signer's point about Trump having blood on his hands.
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