Mother of Charlottesville Victim Heather Heyer Says She’s Received Death Threats

A day after burying her daughter, the mother of a woman killed during Saturday’s white nationalist rally in Charlottesville scoffed at President Donald Trump’s claim that violence on “both sides” lead to her daughter’s death.

Susan Bro said Thursday that any fights between marching racists and counter-protesters were “irrelevant” because her daughter, Heather Heyer, was simply peacefully protesting when she was brutally mowed down.

"Whether there was violence on both sides or not is irrelevant," Bro told MSNBC's Katy Tur. "The guy mowed my daughter down and, sorry, that’s not excusable."

Heyer was killed Saturday when a man police have said is 20-year-old James Alex Fields, Jr. drove his car into a crowd of protesters following a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. She was 32.

In the exclusive interview, Bro said that the White House has reached out to her several times since her daughter’s death, but that she hasn’t had a chance to speak to President Trump.

“I saw that his office had called about three times,” she said. “It feels awful, but I just haven’t had time to talk to the president.”

Trump has received sharp condemnation for first refusing to rebuke of the white nationalist protesters, and later for saying that there were “very fine people” on "both sides" of the rally — despite the fact that one side chanted Nazi slogans and carried Nazi flags.

If Heyer were alive, Bro said her daughter would laugh in the face of the bigots who are emboldened by Trump’s defense of their Confederate monument protest.

“She would have laughed them to scorn,” she said.

She also added that she feels Trump is catering to the wrong groups of voters.

“I think the president has found a niche in voters of the people who feel marginalized and I think he has continued to nurture those marginalized voters,” she said. “I’ve had death threats already ... because of what I’m doing right this second."

Despite the threats, Bro said she refuses to live in fear and has vowed to continue to carry on her daughter’s legacy by establishing a foundation in her name.

"I want people to start talking to one another," she said. "Equality is ... when you see a person not a label.