Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer, says she still has not talked directly with Donald Trump and that she will not be talking with him.
In an interview with Good Morning America, Bro said that the White House had called several times—with the first call apparently coming in the middle of Heather’s memorial service. While inconsiderate timing may have gotten in the way of those initial calls, Bro made it clear that what’s stopping the conversation at this point isn’t scheduling, but Donald Trump’s horrendous statements.
Reporter: Have you talked to him directly yet?
Bro: I have not, and now I will not. At first I just missed his calls. The first call came, it looks like, during the funeral. I didn’t even see that message. There were three more frantic messages from press secretaries throughout the day and I didn’t know why, that would have been on Wednesday. … I hadn’t really watched the news until last night. And I’m not talking to the president. Not now. I’m sorry, not after what he said about my child. It’s not that I saw somebody else’s tweets about him. I saw an actual clip of him at a press conference equating the protestors ‘like Ms. Heyer,’ with the KKK and the white supremacists.
Before he got down to talking about how nice some of the Nazis were, Donald Trump assured everyone that Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer, had given him big kudos for his condolences skills.
Trump: It was an NBC, her mother wrote me and said, through I guess Twitter, social media, the nicest things. And I very much appreciated that. I hear she was a fine, really actually an incredible young woman. But her mother, on Twitter, thanked me for what I said. And honestly, if the press were not fake and if it was honest, the press would have said what I said was very nice. Unlike you and unlike—excuse me. Unlike you and unlike the media, before I make a statement, I like to know the facts.
Now that she’s had a chance to see what Donald Trump actually said, Heather Heyer’s mother didn’t think it was “very nice.” That’s the facts.
Donald Trump’s reasonable-but-late statement on Monday avoided making the kind of “both sides” comparisons that Trump made in his initial statement. Susan Bro had previously thanked Trump for that statement.
Reporter: After he read his statement on Monday, you thanked him. But now you’ve had a chance to hear his remarks from Tuesday, and that has changed your position as far as the president is concerned and wanting to hear from him?
Bro: Absolutely. You can’t wash this one away by shaking my hand and saying “I’m sorry.” … I’m not forgiving for that.
Bro stated that she had heard from many politicians, but didn’t want any of them speaking at Heather’s funeral, because she wanted to keep it a private, family affair—her last opportunity to be with her daughter.
Heather Heyer was killed when a white supremacist drove a car at high speed into a crowd of peaceful counter-protestors in Charlottesville, VA. The coalition of KKK, Nazis, and other white nationalists groups were in Charlottesville for the purpose of generating fear and violence in reaction to the city’s decision to remove a Confederate statue.
In his Tuesday statements, Donald Trump repeatedly defended the white supremacists and made statements that the counter-protestors shared blame for violence in Charlottesville. Trump also drew comparisons between Confederate leader and the founders of the nation—a position that’s widely touted within the white supremacist community. Trump has continued to defend this positions and make more statements in defense of statues celebrating Confederates.