Trump lambasted after retweeting message which called him a ‘fascist’
PRESIDENT Trump has blundered again after appearing to accidentally retweet a message from one of his critics saying “he’s a fascist”.
Mr Trump deleted his retweet yesterday after about five minutes, but not before the message sent to his 35 million followers received a big response.
Mr Trump (right) seems to have been trying to draw attention to a Fox & Friends article on a possible presidential pardon for former Phoenix-area sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of a crime for ignoring a US court order to stop traffic patrols that targeted immigrants.
A Twitter handle identified as ‘@MikeHolden42’ tweeted to Mr Trump: “He’s a fascist, so not unusual.” The user suggested in subsequent tweets that he was calling Mr Trump a fascist, not Mr Arpaio.
Mr Trump retweeted the message to his massive following, triggering an avalanche of replies. @MikeHolden42 responded: “I’m announcing my retirement from Twitter. I’ll never top this RT.”
He later updated his description on Twitter as ‘Officially Endorsed by the President of the United States’.
On Tuesday, Mr Trump also retweeted and deleted a cartoon showing a train labelled ‘Trump’ running over a man with ‘CNN’ covering his face. The retweets come after a national uproar over race-fuelled clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia.
It took two days of public equivocation and internal White House debate before the President condemned white supremacist groups by name on Monday, declaring “racism is evil”.
Late Monday, Mr Trump had retweeted Jack Posobiec, a conservative Trump supporter who used social media to draw attention to ‘pizzagate’, an unfounded conspiracy theory that claims Democrats harbour child sex slaves at a pizza restaurant.
Mr Posobiec’s tweet read: “Meanwhile: 39 shootings in Chicago this weekend, nine deaths. No national media outrage. Why is that?”
Meanwhile, Mr Trump’s former chief spin doctor has said he would sack chief strategist Steve Bannon if it was up to him.
Anthony Scaramucci, who was sacked 10 days into the job, appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
He reiterated that he thinks former chief of staff Reince Priebus and Mr Bannon were leaking information from the White House and said he would sack the latter.
“If it was up to me, he would be gone. But it’s not up to me,” he said.
The spin doctor was dumped days after making an expletive-laden and offensive rant against senior White House staff.
He said that he does not think he was stabbed in the back and said he knew his tenure could not last long.