Former vice-president Joe Biden made President Donald Trump's comments about Charlottesville, the site of a neo-Nazi torch march and deadly white nationalist rally in 2017, the focus of his videotaped presidential campaign announcement Thursday.
Trump saw "fine people on both sides."
"With those words, the President of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it."
Former mayor Mike Signer said, "What happened in Charlottesville was so shocking and so historic that I think it deserves somebody like this former vice-president talking about it in those terms."
Trump claimed to be talking about those who would save bronze Civil War statues, but University of Virginia pundit Larry Sabato disagrees.
"You know, humans can hear these dog whistles."
First year student Joelle Miller lauds Biden's message and has one of her own about this community.
"That it is able to rise out of this hatred."