Trump retweets, then deletes, 'white power' video
June 28, 2020
US President Donald Trump drew outrage on Sunday after he retweeted a video in which one of his supporters chanted "white power" at a group of protesters in Florida.
The video portrayed protesters and Trump supporters shouting profanities at each other in The Villages retirement community in central Florida.
In the video, a man riding a golf cart raised his fist and repeatedly chanted "white power," a phrase often used by white supremacists.
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"Thank you to the great people of The Villages. The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall," Trump wrote above the original tweet containing the video.
"Corrupt Joe is Shot. See you soon!!!" Trump's tweet continued, referring to former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
Trump later deleted the tweet sharing the video. White House spokesman Judd Deere said the US leader "did not hear the one statement made on the video."
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Trump's tweet was widely condemned, including by members of his Republican Party.
"It was so profanity-laced. The entire thing was offensive. Certainly, the comment about the white power was offensive," Tim Scott, a Republican US Senator from South Carolina, said on American TV station CNN. "It's indefensible. We should take it down."
Trump has been accused of worsening racial tensions in the US during his presidency. Those accusations escalated during recent Black Lives Matter protests that have arisen across the country after the police killing of George Floyd.
dv/mm (AP, dpa, Reuters)