Trump Tweet: 'Corrupt Joe Is Shot' and 'White Power!'

The president's retweet sparks outcry on 'State of the Union'
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 28, 2020 12:39 PM CDT
Trump Tweets Video With Protest Cry, 'White Power!'
A screenshot from the video at the moment "white power" is heard.   (YouTube)

President Trump grabbed the media's attention Sunday morning by retweeting a video that appeared to promote white power, NBC News reports. The video (WARNING: profanity) features a line of golf carts trundling past anti-Trump protesters who shout "racist," to which a Trump supporter yells, "white power!" Trump's tweet has since been removed. "Thank you to the great people of The Villages," Trump wrote of the retirement community in Florida. "The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is shot. See you soon!!!" Administration officials and lawmakers swiftly addressed the video, which some likened to other troubling Trump retweets from accounts like WhiteGenocideTM and QAnon. Among the reactions:

  • "President Trump is a big fan of the Villages," said White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere, per CNN. "He did not hear the one statement made on the video. What he did see was tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters."
  • "If you watch the entire video—you can't play it because it was so profanity-laced," said Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), the GOP's only black senator, on CNN's State of the Union, per the Hill. "The entire thing was offensive. Certainly the comment about the white power was offensive." He called the video "indefensible."
  • "He doesn't pay attention to a lot of things," said John Bolton on State of the Union about Trump's awareness of the video's content, per the Wall Street Journal. "Not considering the implications of all the information he gets is typical of Trump."
  • "I've not seen that, and so I don't want to comment further on that," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said after CNN's Jake Tapper played the video on State of the Union. "But obviously the president and I and his whole administration would stand against any acts of white supremacy."
(More white supremacism stories.)

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