President Donald Trump on Sunday retweeted — and then deleted — a two-minute video that featured a Florida Trump supporter yelling, “White power!” while driving a golf cart by anti-Trump protesters.
“Thank you to the great people of The Villages,” Trump wrote in his tweet, referring to a popular retirement community outside of Orlando, Florida. “The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is shot. See you soon!!”
In the first seconds of the video, anti-Trump protesters can be heard yelling “racist” as a caravan of Trump protesters drive past in golf carts. In response, one man driving a golf cart that has signs reading “Trump 2020” and “America First” shouts back, “White power!” several times while pumping his fist in the air.
“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,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement after the president’s retweet was deleted.
The president’s retweet sparked immediate backlash — including from Republicans.
“He should not have retweeted and he should just take it down,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) told Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “It is indefensible.”
The original tweet, from an account dubbed Fifty Shades of Whey, was posted Saturday and received 19,000 retweets. But according to the local news outlet Villages-News.com, the video appears to have been recorded on June 14 during a golf cart rally staged by Villagers for Trump. “Emotions ran raw, insults were hurled back and forth at least one fight almost broke out between Republicans and Democrats,” the outlet wrote of the event.