‘Stand Back And Stand By’: 5 Things To Know About The Proud Boys

CLEVELAND, OH — Toward the end of Tuesday night’s debate with former Vice President Joe Biden, President Donald Trump declined to denounce white supremacy outright but, when pressed, told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”

Biden, the Democratic candidate in the Nov. 3 general election, gave Trump the name of the Proud Boys as an example of white supremacist groups or armed militias that debate moderator Chris Wallace had asked the president to denounce.

“What do you want to call them?” Trump asked. “Give me a name.”

“The Proud Boys,” Biden interjected.

“Do it, sir,” Wallace prodded.

Though he refused at the debate to condemn white supremacists who have supported him, he said when asked directly about it on the campaign trail Wednesday that he had always denounced "any form of any of that."

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Here are five things to know about the Proud Boys:

1. Who Are The Proud Boys?

Canadian-British right-wing activist and Vice magazine co-founder Gavin McInnes created the Proud Boys in the run-up to Trump’s election in 2016. It’s a men-only international group, and members take this oath: “I am a proud western chauvinist, I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.”

Proud Boys members adamantly deny they’re part of the racist alt-right, describing themselves as a fraternal group spreading messages of “anti-political correctness” and “anti-white guilt.”

Members generally support strong gun rights and reject feminism and gender equality.

2. Are The Proud Boys A Hate Group?

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal and civil rights advocacy group that tracks hate groups, says so, noting on its website that Proud Boys members and leaders “regularly spout white nationalist memes and maintain affiliations with known extremists.”

MORE DEBATE COVERAGE: Trump, Biden Debate Marked By Acrimony | Who Won The 1st Trump-Biden Debate?

The Anti-Defamation League says underpinnings of the Proud Boys oath are misogyny, Islamophobia, transphobia and anti-immigrant views; that some Proud Boys members use violent tactics at rallies and protests; and that the League labels members “hard-core white supremacists.”

An FBI report in 2018 classified the Proud Boys as an “extremist group with ties to white nationalism,” but the agency clarified the statement, saying that while the agency does assess threats of violence and conduct investigations, its probes don’t extend to individuals and groups exercising the right of free speech.

3. Do The Proud Boys Use Violent Tactics?

Armed with paintball guns, metal rods, aluminum bats, fireworks, pepper spray, rifles and handguns, Proud Boys and armed militia members sparred with racial justice protesters for more than two hours at a “Back the Blue” rally in Portland, Oregon, in August.

Among several injured at the protest was 25-year-old Dakota Means, who described himself to The Washington Post as mixed race and a Marine Corps veteran. He said he attended the rally to support Black Lives Matter and oppose the threats of the far-right activists to shoot at civilians.

“I counted six shots — three of them whizzed past me, two of them landed in front of me, but the last one hit me right in the corner my eye, right where the bridge of my nose is,” he said. “I stumbled back and dropped to my knees and passed out for about a minute, and then when I woke up, there was medics all around me trying to figure out what was happening.”

There have been other times the Proud Boys have been associated with violence at rallies, most notably at the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia, Unite the Right event, where counterprotester Heather Heyer was killed. Proud Boys member Jason Kessler helped organize the rally, which also attracted members of Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups.

Trump declined to denounce white supremacy groups then, too, famously saying the rally attracted “very fine people, on both sides.”

4. The Proud Boys Are Feeling Proud.

It didn’t take Proud Boys members long to flood social media with celebratory posts after the president’s “stand back and stand by” comment.

“Standing by, Sir,” one person replied, starting a stream of comments that reflected the same sentiment.

Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University in North Carolina who tracks online extremism, said the president’s order to “stand back and stand by” was a fantasy come true for Proud Boys members who may have seen it as a direct command.

“To say Proud Boys are energized by this is an understatement,” Squire told NBC News. “They were pro-Trump before this shoutout, and they are absolutely over the moon now. Their fantasy is to fight antifa in his defense, and he apparently just asked them to do just that.”

5. These Proud Boys Are Completely Different.

The Proud Boys USA would like to get their name back.

“Reclaiming our name,” the group says on its Twitter page, directly taking on the Proud Boys oath in a description of its members as “queer, pan-gender, multi-cultural organization who will not apologize for our space in the modern world.”