The mother of Heather Heyer, the woman killed in Charlottesville last weekend, said she has no plans to speak to President Trump after he equated protesters like her daughter with the white supremacists who had marched on the city.

“After what he said about my child, and — 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 protesters like Ms. Heyer with the KKK and the white supremacists,” Heyer’s mother, Susan Bro, told “Good Morning America” on Friday.

“You can’t wash this one away by shaking my hand and saying I’m sorry,” Bro said. “I’m not forgiving for that.”

Bro’s comments marked a sharp, personal response to Trump’s statement that “both sides” were to blame for the violence in Charlottesville that erupted when counterprotesters confronted white supremacists and neo-Nazis who had marched there for a rally.

“Do they have any semblance of guilt?” Trump asked of the counterprotesters. “Do they have any problem? I think they do.”

Trump had also expressed kind words for Heyer, tweeting that she was “a truly special young woman.”

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Bro said that she initially missed the first call from the White House because it appeared to come during Heyer’s funeral on Wednesday, four days after she was killed in what federal officials say may have been a terrorist attack as well as a hate crime. Bro said “three more frantic messages from press secretaries” followed throughout the day Wednesday, but she said she did not immediately respond because she was home recovering from the service.

It was not until Thursday night that Bro said she was able to actually watch the news and, she said, see a clip of Trump’s comments.

“I’m not talking to the president now,” she said Friday. When asked what message she might have for Trump, Bro said: “Think before you speak.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday regarding Bro’s remarks.

Bro had also told MSNBC on Thursday that she received death threats since speaking about her daughter at Heyer’s memorial service in Charlottesville on Wednesday.

“They tried to kill my child to shut her up, but guess what, you just magnified her,” Bro had said during the service, prompting an ovation lasting nearly a minute and a half.

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Trump has drawn intense criticism for his response to the chaos in Charlottesville. His first remarks, delivered Saturday after Heyer was killed, prompted a backlash when Trump denounced “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides” and did not specifically single out white supremacists or neo-Nazis.

On Monday, Trump then called out those groups by name, saying that “racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs.” Bro released a statement that day thanking Trump for his “words of comfort and denouncing those who promote violence and hatred.”

However, a day later Trump returned to his declaration that “both sides” were to blame for the violence during a remarkable news conference in New York.

During the news conference, Trump also offered kind words for Heyer and thanked Bro for her statement about him.

Trump also pilloried James Alex Fields Jr., who police said plowed into Heyer and other counterprotesters in Charlottesville on Saturday, as “a disgrace to himself” and “a murderer.” Though Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said the attack fits the definition of domestic terrorism, Trump declined to call it terrorism when asked by a reporter.

The White House has not explained why officials waited four days before trying to connect Trump with Heyer’s relatives. In November, after a San Antonio police officer was shot and killed, Trump — then the president-elect — called his relatives the following day. Trump also met personally with the victims of an attack at Ohio State University carried out by a Somali refugee.

On Tuesday, during the same news conference, Trump did not say whether he will travel to Charlottesville. Trump also said he had not spoken to Heyer’s family, and when asked when he would reach out, he did not directly respond, instead thanking Bro again for her statement.

“Under the kind of stress that she is under and the heartache that she is under, I thought putting out that statement to me was really something I won’t forget,” he said.


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