Monday’s episode of HBO’s VICE News Tonight went behind the scenes of this weekend’s violent protests in Charlottesville, and now, the full, eye-opening 22-minute segment is available to view for free on YouTube.
The episode begins with footage of white supremacists chanting phrases like, “You will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!” and counterprotesters shouting “No Nazis! No KKK! No facist U.S.A.!” It then launches into an interview with “Unite the Right” speaker and white nationalist Christopher Cantwell.
“When Trayvon Martin case happened, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice, and all these different things happened — every single case, it’s some little black a—hole behaving like a savage and he gets himself in trouble shockingly enough,” he tells VICE reporter Elle Reeve. “Whatever problems I might have with my fellow white people, they generally are not inclined to such behavior. You gotta take that into consideration when you’re thinking about how to organize your society.”
Reeve responds by reminding him of the Oklahoma City bombing, pointing out that everyone is capable of violence. “Of course we’re capable,” he says. “I’m carrying a pistol, I go to the gym all the time, I’m trying to make myself more capable of violence. I’m here to spread ideas, talk, in the hopes that somebody more capable will come along and do that. Somebody like Donald Trump, who does not give his daughter to a Jew.”
Later, Reeve is in a car with Cantwell and others and speaks with a Neo-Nazi named Robert “Azzmador” Ray. “We’re starting to slowly unveil a little bit of our power level,” he says. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
The episode also includes footage of a car plowing into a crowd, which left one woman, Heather Heyer, dead. An upset Charlottesville resident wearing a “Black Lives Matter” shirt then addresses the camera: “There are bodies lying on the ground right now. We told City Council we did not want them here. They let them come. We told the police we did not want them here. They let them come. I had to jump out of the way, I almost got hit by the car my f—king self.”
“I have a great-grandfather who literally has told me the same stories of what I have experienced today,” student activist Montae Taylor says later at a vigil. “The fact that I can look at what’s going on, and see what my grandfather was talking about, is not scary, but it’s appalling. And the fact that we have a president that can come on national TV and go from talking about how people were wrong on many sides and not even acknowledge the young lady who lost her life in result of the people who he has notably and knowingly incited is appalling to me, but honestly, I can’t say that I’m surprised.”
“This is the face of supremacy,” local activist Tanesha Hudson tells VICE News at the same vigil. “This is what we deal with every day being African-American and this has always been the reality of Charlottesville. You can’t stand in one corner of this city and not look at the master sitting on top of Monticello. He looks down on us. He’s been looking down on this city for God knows how long.”
Later, Reeve reconnects with Cantwell to go over the weekend’s events. “We knew that we were going to meet a lot of resistance,” he tells her. “The fact that nobody on our side died, I’d go ahead and call that points for us.” He then calls the rally “tough to top,” adding, “I think a lot more people are going to die before we’re done here, frankly.”
