Former President Donald Trump issued a scathing statement about Richmond removing the iconic statue of General Robert E. Lee on Wednesday.
Trump asserted that if General Lee had been commanding the troops in Afghanistan, the war would have ended in a "complete and total victory years ago."
"Just watched as a massive crane took down the magnificent and very famous statue of 'Robert E. Lee On His Horse' in Richmond, Virginia. It has long been recognized as a beautiful piece of bronze sculpture. To add insult to injury, those who support this 'taking' now plan to cut it into three pieces, and throw this work of art into storage prior to its complete desecration," Trump said in his statement.
The former president continued, "Robert E. Lee is considered by many Generals to be the greatest strategist of them all. President Lincoln wanted him to command the North, in which case the war would have been over in one day. Robert E. Lee instead chose the other side because of his great love of Virginia, and except for Gettysburg, would have won the war. He should be remembered as perhaps the greatest unifying force after the war was over, ardent in his resolve to bring the North and South together through many means of reconciliation and imploring his soldiers to do their duty in becoming good citizens of this Country.""Our culture is being destroyed and our history and heritage, both good and bad, are being extinguished by the Radical Left, and we can’t let that happen! If only we had Robert E. Lee to command our troops in Afghanistan, that disaster would have ended in a complete and total victory many years ago. What an embarrassment we are suffering because we don’t have the genius of a Robert E. Lee!" Trump concluded, adding several photos of the removal.
Governor Ralph Northam had vowed to remove the statue last year amid the Black Lives Matter riots. The statue has been repeatedly vandalized over the years, without being cleaned up.
“This was a long time coming [and] part of the healing process so Virginia can move forward and be a welcoming state with inclusiveness and diversity,” Northam told the crowd when the statue came down.
Northam claimed the statue represented “more than 400 years of history that we should not be proud of.”
