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Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that President Donald Trump has repeatedly denounced white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK, despite Trump saying there were very fine people on opposing sides of a violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The president and I were very clear last weekend,in the wake of the terribly tragic events in Charlottesville, that we denounce hatred and bigotry and violence in all of its forms, Pence told NBCs Today show host Matt Lauer.

"He denounced hate and violence on Saturday, he did it in his address to the nation Monday, and he did it again in the press conference Tuesday, Pence said.

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U.S. Vice President Mike Pence continues to defend the president's comments following a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Viriginia. Rodrigo Garrido/Reuters

Demonstrator Heather Heyer died and 19 others were injured when they were rammed by a car thatpolice say was driven by a white supremacist activist at the march.

The white supremacist rally was held ostensibly to protest the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate Army General Robert E. Lee, who fought in the Civil War to protect Southern states' rights to keep slaves.

During a press conference at Trump Tower on August 15, Trump saidthere were very fine people marching in the white supremacist rally and among the counterprotesters. Trump said he opposed the removal of monuments to the Confederate army throughout the U.S. because you are changing history, youre changing culture.

Related: Can Trump recover his neo-Nazi-tainted brand?

You had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists. OK? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly, he said. The march was billed as a white supremacist rally.

Following Trumps comments, former KKK grand wizard David Dukepraised Trumps condemnation of leftist terrorists in the Black Lives Matter movement.

During the rally, Duke called it a turning point to take our country back and fulfill the promises of Donald Trump. That's what we believed in. That's why we voted for Donald Trump.

During his interview on the Today show, Pence said, I can't account for the views of that person or their opinions. The president disavowed David Duke. Last week,Pence said the American media spend more time criticizing the president than they do hate groups.

Immediately after Heyer was killed, Trump issued a statement saying there was violence on both sides between white supremacists and counterprotesters. A number of white supremacists were pepper-sprayed and beaten by members of the anti-fascist movement.

Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin of the website Daily Stormer has praised Trumps reaction to the Charlottesville rally for not singling out white supremacists.

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan told a CNN town hall on Monday night that some of Trumps comments on the Charlottesville violence were morally ambiguous.

When former neo-Nazi Christian Picciolini was asked last week about whether he considered Trumps comments a racist dog whistle to white supremacist groups on the podcast Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, he said: Oh yeah.

Picciolini said he heard dog whistles all throughout the campaign and even as recent as two days ago, referring to the Trump Tower press conference. His nonprofit Life After Hate seeks to deradicalize and support those trying to leave the white supremacist movement. In 2016, Life After Hate received a $400,000 grant from the federal governments Countering Violent Extremism Task Force.

After Trump administration took office, we learned that our grant was being pulled, Picciolini said. Of the pool of 33 organizations that were awarded this grant, we were the only organization that was rescinded the grant, he added, and also the only organization that focused on white extremism.

Pence told Lauer that accusations of racism and courting white supremacists against the president and Trump administration are not true. As the president has made clear, we have denounced those organizations, he said. There was no moral equivalency drawn by the president between hate groups and counterprotesters who opposed them.

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Trump Has 'Repeatedly' Denounced White Supremacists, Says Mike Pence - Newsweek

The Democratic National Committee is conducting full-scale opposition research on multiple Republicans it believes could challenge President Donald Trump for reelection or are likely to run if he does not.

The effort, which began in late spring, covers Vice President Mike Pence, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, among others.

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With Trumps tumultuous presidency in complete chaos, we are prepared for all scenarios, said DNC research director Lauren Dillon, confirming the campaign to POLITICO.

In the case of Republicans like Pence and Kasich, the team of over two dozen DNC researchers is mostly updating the existing research books they deployed in 2016, according to Democrats familiar with the arrangement. For the others, the operatives are combing through voting and governing records, compiling financial files, searching for conflicts of interest, and saving clips on their relationships with Trump.

For an opposition party to be scrutinizing potential intraparty reelection rivals to an incumbent president just seven months into his term is highly unusual. But the start of the Trump presidency marked by unprecedented staff turnover, the appointment of an independent counsel and a perpetual state of chaos has been nothing if not unusual.

In recent months, the Democratic staff has increased the pace of its Freedom of Information Act-style records requests in multiple states. It has dispatched researchers to courthouses to collect legal records pertaining to the potential candidates. Among the destinations so far: Indiana, where Pence served as governor until January.

The topic of a 2020 election without Trump as the nominee is an extremely delicate one for Republicans: Pence and his aides publicly lashed out earlier this month after a New York Times report suggested he and others were prepping for potential runs if Trump were to pass on a reelection bid.

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"As the Vice President has said repeatedly, the only election in 2020 that he is focused on is the reelection of President Trump and Vice President Pence," Pence press secretary Marc Lotter told POLITICO in response to a question about the DNC effort.

Trump has a team working on his 2020 reelection bid already, and presidential primary challenges are once-in-a-generation occurrences. The last one was in 1992, when Pat Buchanan failed in his attempt to oust President George H.W. Bush.

But with Trumps approval rating falling to dangerous lows and fellow GOP leaders publicly opposing him more frequently than ever before, operatives on both sides have pointed to other Republicans activities as evidence of their interest in running.

Pence has built up his political operation both inside and outside the White House, for example, and Kasich has refused to rule out the possibility of a run while loudly criticizing the president though he has said he is not planning to take Trump on.

Sasse another Trump critic drew notice among Trump's allies by appearing in Iowa earlier this year.

The potential candidates' aides brush off questions about their ambitions.

I think the Democrats would be better served coming up with a better economic policy rather than planning to rely on Trump's unpopularity, said Kasichs political adviser John Weaver.

U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley is among a handful of Republicans who are being closely watched by national Democrats. | Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

"How Democrats waste their money is up to them, but this is pretty funny," added Sasse spokesman James Wegmann.

Haley spokesman John Degory offered, "I don't know or have anything to share on that."

Operatives on both sides of the aisle preparing for 2020 have also started speculating about the intentions of Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Marco Rubio of Florida, as well as former Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

Needless to say, there is no historical precedent for this kind of challenge to a sitting president this early in his term. I do think its important to begin to have these discussions, if for no other reason than to make it clear that there remain Republicans unstained by Trumps presidency, said Charlie Sykes, a veteran influential conservative radio host based in Wisconsin.

Nonetheless, theres no consensus around the usefulness of an early effort like the DNC's. Multiple Democrats and Republicans noted that each recent case in which a president received a primary challenge ended with a significantly weakened commander in chief winning his partys nomination, but losing reelection. And a scenario in which Trump were not running at all would also signal a massive shift in the electoral landscape.

To get to the point where another candidate is even considered, "the circumstances that would compel or permit such a change would have to be so remarkable, so sweeping, so unprecedented that any oppo research on a particular candidate would be rendered moot by the very circumstances that occasioned the change, said Tom Rath, a longtime Republican strategist in New Hampshire and a former state attorney general who advised Kasich in 2016.

Rath added: I would think, if I were a Dem, I would really want to run against Trump in 20 rather than any one else."

Democrats are expected to have a messy primary with dozens of candidates of their own, and Republicans are amassing their own research in advance of that contest. The GOP opposition research firm America Rising has publicly launched efforts against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, much like they did against Hillary Clinton before the 2016 election cycle.

The Republican National Committee, meanwhile, has roughly 20 staff members divided between its war room and research office tracking public statements by and issuing public record requests on a range of Democrats, aiming to identify the potential candidates' top vulnerabilities.

The DNC effort is not the lone attempt to kick-start preparations for a 2020 race that includes Republicans other than Trump. Democratic opposition research group American Bridge has assigned three staffers to a Pence project of its own, BuzzFeed reported last week. But the DNC's push is the largest in scale, so far ahead of the election.

Its a reflection of the committees Trump-era focus on research as central to its efforts. While the organization's staff tends to disband after presidential elections, then-DNC chair Donna Brazile kept the full research team intact last year, and it remained in place to zero in on Trump when the new chairman, Tom Perez, took over in February.

But its also a move to shore up the partys files on potential 2024 candidates.

Democrats had little research done on Trump when he announced he was running, unlike the six years worth of planning they had done for Romney by the time he launched his 2012 campaign. The glossy bound research file distributed by American Bridge to reporters in 2014 famously did not even include a section on Trump.

While American Bridge had started building files on likely 2020 candidates by October 2016 when it looked like Clinton would cruise past Trump that effort stalled after the election.

So this new campaign not only signals to the rest of the party that its 2020 preparations should begin in earnest, just seven months into Trumps first term, its also an attempt to avoid being caught flat-footed, said Erik Smith, a senior adviser to both of Barack Obamas presidential campaigns.

Its much harder," he said, "to compile, analyze and summarize opposition research in the heat of a campaign."

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Dems prep for Pence, Kasich, Haley to run in 2020 - Politico

PHOENIX - A source has confirmed to ABC15 that Vice President Mike Pence will be in attendance at President Trump's campaign rally at the Phoenix Convention Center Tuesday.

VP Mike Pence will be with President Trump tomorrow in Phoenix, confirms a source familiar with the rally preps. #ABC15

A senior administration official also confirmed the Vice President's attendance to CNN.

Tens of thousands of people are expected at the rally, which begins at 7 p.m.

RELATED:Guide to President Trump's rally in Phoenix

The President will begin his day in Arizona with a stop in Yuma, where he will visit a Marine Corps base before coming to the Valley.

He will spend the night in the Phoenix area after his rally.

RELATED: Gov. Doug Ducey to skip Donald Trump rally in Phoenix; Joe Arpaio not invited

The vice president was also in Phoenix for the last rally held at the Phoenix Convention Center, in October 2016.

Continued here:
Sources: Vice President Mike Pence to attend Tuesday rally with President Donald Trump in Phoenix - KGUN

Mike Pence, Opinion contributor Published 9:10 p.m. ET Aug. 21, 2017 | Updated 11:05 p.m. ET Aug. 21, 2017

President Trump unveiled his "path forward" in Afghanistan in a nationally televised speech Monday night before a military audience at Fort Myer, Virginia. USA TODAY

Vice President Pence and President Trump(Photo: Carolyn Kaster, AP)

President Trump has no higher priority than the safety and security of the American people. Since the very first day of our administration, he has taken decisive action to protect our citizens, our countryand our very way of life and on Monday, President Trump announced a new strategy for addressing threats from Afghanistan and South Asia that will enhance the security of our homeland and protect our people from those who would do us harm.

America must prevent terrorists from regaining a foothold in Afghanistan the country from where al-Qaeda, aided by the Taliban, planned and directed the attacks on Sept.11, 2001. Yet the previous administration publicly placed an arbitrary end date on military operations in Afghanistan, enabling the Taliban to bide its time and begin a renewed campaign to reconquer its lost territory. We need only look at Iraq, and the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syriafollowing the last administrations withdrawal of U.S.forces, to see where this path leads.

President Trump has reversed that policy. And important, he has ensured that our armed forces will have the resources and authorization they need in order to succeed.

The president has authorized our armed forces to directly target the terrorists and militant networks that sow violence and chaos throughout Afghanistan, who put our soldiers at riskand destabilize the region. Hehas lifted the restrictions that prevented our commanders in the field from fully using their judgment and expertise to carry out their critical missions. Bureaucrats dont win battles; our brave men and women in uniform do, and they deserve the flexibility they need to fight and win every time.

At the same time, our strategy will integrate all instruments of American power diplomatic and economic as well as military to move toward a political settlement in Afghanistan that protects our interests. Achieving this goal requires that both the Afghan authorities and the Taliban demonstrate political will to participate in a meaningful dialogue. This means we must defeat the Taliban in the field and support the Afghan government. As President Trump has said, the United States of America seeks a future (in our hemisphere)where the people of each country can live out their dreams" a future of freedom, security, and prosperity for us all.

To be clear: Americas goal in Afghanistan is not to impose democracy or a strong central government that runs counter to Afghanistans tradition of local autonomy. Nonetheless,weinsist that the Afghan government reduce corruption, implement reforms, and continue to strengthen its security forces, which have repeatedly provedtheir courage and resolve on the field of battle.

President Trump has determined that conditions not arbitrary timetables will guide our strategy. The previous administration alerted our enemies ahead of time by announcing troop numbers and timelines, something President Trump has wisely refused to do.

A stable Afghanistan will mean a safer America. To achieve this goal, President Trumps new strategy for South Asia also calls for a shift in Americas policy towards Pakistan, a place he refuses to ignore.

Pakistan, like Afghanistan, is a haven for terrorist activity. Between the two countries, no fewer than 20 U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations have haven and conduct operations the highest concentration of any region in the world. Pakistan, which has borne the weight of terrorist attacks in the past, shares with us a common enemy in ISIS and can be an important partner moving forward. Yet Pakistan too often turns a blind eye to the cancer of terrorism, and in many cases, Pakistan has contributed to the growth of terrorist groups.

America will not write a blank check for countries that fail to root out the same forces who try every day to kill our people. Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with our effort in Afghanistan. It has much more to lose by supporting terrorists. The president has put them on notice.

Finally, the president'sstrategy for South Asia involves a stronger strategic partnership with India the worlds largest democracy and a key security and economic partner. India has made important contributions towards Afghanistans stability and security, and India has also pledged critical support to Afghanistans development needs. Because they directly affect Americas interests, America will continue to work closely with New Delhi on these issues.

President Trumps strategy for South Asia will undo the failed policies of the past and put the safety and security of the American people first. And with the presidents leadership, with the courage of our armed forces, and with the prayers of our people: America will be stronger, saferand more secure than ever before.

Mike Pence is vice president of the United States of America.

You can read diverse opinions from ourBoard of Contributorsand other writers on theOpinion front page, on Twitter@USATOpinionand in our dailyOpinion newsletter. To respond to a column, submit a comment toletters@usatoday.com.

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Mike Pence: Donald Trump's new American strategy for Afghanistan will undo past failures - USA TODAY

Gov. DougDucey and Sen. Jeff Flake are not expected attend President Trump's rally.

12 News , KPNX 5:49 PM. MST August 21, 2017

Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence speaks to a crowd of supporters at a campaign rally for presidential nominee Donald Trump on August 31, 2016, in Phoenix. (Photo: Ralph Freso/Getty Images)

PHOENIX - NBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard has confirmed with two sources that Vice President Mike Pence will join President Donald Trump in Phoenix for Tuesday's campaign rally.

It will be both Trump's and Pence's first visit to Phoenix since the election in November.

New: Vice President Pence will join President Trump in Phoenix on Tuesday night for campaign rally, per two sources.

Trump visited the Valley multiple times during his 2016 campaign, including a high-profile speech at the convention center in August and an earlier date in Fountain Hills that included arrests of protesters who chained themselves to vehicles blocking a roadway in the area.

The rally is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. at the Phoenix Convention Center in downtown Phoenix.

12 News has learned Phoenix police are worried about so-called trouble spots including the Capitol, the Confederate monument, a portion of Interstate 10, light rail and other parts of downtown Phoenix.

READ:Phoenix PD monitoring social media, mapping problem spots in prep for Trump rally

RELATED:Gov. Ducey confirms he's not going to President Trump's Phoenix rally

2017 KPNX-TV

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Vice President Mike Pence will join Trump for Phoenix rally - 12 News - KPNX 12 News TV