United States President Donald Trump forwarded a message on Twitter that contained a video showing one of his supporters in Florida shouting “white power” at a group of anti-government protesters, prompting an immediate protest from the only Black Republican Senate.
The video, which was later removed from the Trump thread, shows Trump supporters and detractors insulting each other. After a protester calls a Trump supporter racist, the man responds by raising his fist and yelling “white power.”
It is a motto often used by white supremacists.
“There is no question that he should not have been retweeted and that he should just be removed,” Senator Tim Scott told CNN’s “State of the Union” program.
White House spokesman Judd Deere said the president “is a big fan of The Villages. He did not hear the only statement made in the video. What he did see was the tremendous enthusiasm of his many supporters.”
The message comes after Trump’s hostile response to protests against racial injustice across the country following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died after a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes in Minneapolis.
In the Twitter message, Trump wrote “Thank you to the great people at The Villages,” a Florida retirement community that he visited last year.
Trump has been accused of racism by lawmakers for his Twitter messages in the past. Among other controversies, he has tweeted attacks on black lawmakers and has told four deputies of color that they should “come back and help fix the completely broken and crime-infested places they came from.”
The controversial video shared by Trump:
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