Trump retweets video of apparent supporter shouting 'white power,' then deletes it
The White House says the president didn't hear the white supremacist slogan in the video.
The video President Trump retweeted and deleted reportedly took place at The Villages retirement community in Florida. Here, Trump is at The Villages in October signing an executive order to protect and improve Medicare.
President Donald Trump on Sunday retweeted a video of an apparent supporter shouting "white power" and then deleted it about three hours later amid internet backlash.
The edited video, which appears to be taken at a retirement community in Florida called The Villages, shows protesters yelling insults at people wearing Trump shirts driving by in golf cars adorned with Trump signs.
At the start of the two-minute video, a man yells to the Trump supporters, "Where's your white hood?" In response, a white man yells back "white power," a white supremacist slogan, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Trump retweeted the video at about 8 a.m. Eastern along 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 [Biden] is shot. See you soon!!!"
Trump deleted the retweet at about 11 a.m., ET. He rarely deletes tweets, especially relative to how often posts them.
In response to the incident, White House Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere issued a brief statement saying the president hadn't heard the white power statement before retweeting it.
"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 statement reads.
But the retweet was already being widely criticized.
South Carolina's Tim Scott, the only Black Republican senator, called the retweet "indefensible" Sunday on CNN.
"There is no question he should not have retweeted it and he should just take it down," Scott said on the program State of the Union.
Later, Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, offered a tweet of his own on the matter.
"Today the president shared a video of people shouting 'white power' and said they were 'great.' Just like he did after Charlottesville. We're in a battle for the soul of the nation -- and the president has picked a side. But make no mistake: it's a battle we will win."
The profanity-laden video, meanwhile, has been viewed 6.7 million times. A Twitter spokesperson said it doesn't violate the platform's rules on hate speech.
