President Donald Trump retweeted, then took down his comment on a video Sunday of a clash between protesters at The Villages in Florida in which a man taunted pro-Trump demonstrators as Ku Klux Klan members, and another man shouted “White Power!” in reply.
Trump reacted after journalists pointed out the man’s offensive comment, and some supporters said publicly that the president should remove his tweet, which he did.
The White House explained in a statement: “President Trump is a big fan of The Villages. He did not hear the one statement made on the video. What he did see was tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters.”
The video, however, remains live on Twitter as of this report:
Seniors from The Villages in Florida protesting against each other: pic.twitter.com/Q3GRJCTjEW
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) June 27, 2020
As the video begins, a man — evidently an anti-Trump protester — shouts, “Where’s your white hood?” at a pro-Trump motorcade driving by in golf carts. The man continues taunting: “Racist! Racist!”
In reply, the driver of the lead golf cart shouts: “Yeah, you got it. White Power!”
The foul language continues throughout the video, with a woman yelling “Fuck Trump!” at the caravan of pro-Trump demonstrators, and calling them “Nazi pigs.”
The president had retweeted it with the comment: “Thank you to the great people of The Villages. The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is shot. See you soon!!!”
Reached via direct message on Twitter, the author of the tweet pointed to a YouTube video of protests on June 14 as the original source:
Appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said: “There is no question he should not have retweeted it and just take it down.” He said that the entire video was offensive and “indefensible.”
Journalists seized on the tweet, with Politico claiming in its morning e-mail roundup that the president “appears to praise a guy yelling ‘White power’.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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