Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Sunday defended an Independence Day demonstration in Washington by hundreds of masked men chanting “reclaim America!”
Wearing the same uniform — white face coverings, baseball caps, dark shirts and khakis — as that of the white nationalist group Patriot Front, they marched near the U.S. Capitol carrying a variety of flags, including Confederate flags. Some featured a circle of 13 white stars to represent the first American colonies.
“What they stand for is nothing that I could possibly agree with,” Burgum said during an interview on CNN. “But one of the foundational principles of the United States, which makes democracy messy, is free speech.”
“There are plenty of things that I see that I might personally find offensive, reprehensible. But in America, free speech is allowed,” he said, before comparing a public display of racial supremacy to communism.
Echoing President Donald Trump’s midterm-election season attacks on the Democratic Party’s insurgency of democratic socialist candidates, Burgum said, “I mean, we’re a country where someone can run and be elected saying that they’re a communist, but yet this is what our nation has stood against and fought for.”
The Interior Department secretary, who oversaw Trump-branded celebrations of the nation’s 250th anniversary, didn’t directly answer when host Dana Bash asked if he would recommend to Trump that the president condemn the white nationalist group and its messaging.
“Part of my response to that is that there are protests on the mall that people say things that I think are reprehensible about President Trump, and yet they’re allowed to go on because of free speech in our country,” Burgum replied.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, among other civil rights groups, labels Patriot Front a “white nationalist hate group that broke off from Vanguard America in the aftermath of the deadly ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, of August 12, 2017.”
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Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.