At a press conference in 2017, President Trump used the phrase "very fine people" to describe some of the individuals who showed up to "innocently" and "lawfully" protest and counter-protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from a park in Charlottesville, Virginia. At this conference, Trump explicitly "condemned" the white supremacists twice, said they were "very bad people," and emphasized that he was not calling them "very fine people." Still, a reporter at the conference tried to put this spin on his words, and Trump replied, "No, no." Since then, many journalists, activists, and politicians have claimed that Trump called neo-Nazis "very fine people," the exact opposite of what he actually stated. Also contrary to many media stories, the court order that allowed the event to take place and a local NBC news report on the day before it occurred show that Trump was correct when he said that the event's organizers "didn't put themselves down as neo-Nazis."