A tweet storm of hate

On a day when North Korea was bragging that its newly tested ICBM could reach the U.S. mainland and the administration’s tax overhaul hangs by a delicate thread, President Trump decided to start his morning by retweeting three loathsome antiMuslim videos gathered by a far right British activist who herself faces hate speech charges.

The fact that former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke praised the retweet ought to be Trump’s first clue that he’s in a really, really bad place.

A spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May was quick to condemn the retweeting of videos posted by Jayda Fransen of Britain First, saying Britain First seeks to divide communities through its use of “hateful narratives which peddle lies and stoke tensions,” adding, “it is wrong for the president to have done this.”

It is beyond wrong; it is downright unhinged. And it will add to the evidence amassed by federal courts still weighing Trump’s proposed ban on immigration from several Muslim countries.

The Associated Press, researching the videos, found one showing a radical Islamist in Egypt throwing a 9-year-old boy off a roof was from 2013. The killer was sentenced to death. A second video, which reached the internet in 2013 during the Syrian civil war, shows a purported member of the Nusra Front smashing a statue of the Virgin Mary.

A third, traced to Dutch social media in May 2017, shows two teens fighting, one (labeled by Fransen “the Dutch boy”) on crutches. The boys’ religions were not included in any reports and Dutch media has labeled the video “fake news” — a phrase Trump loves to throw around when it suits his purposes.

The bottom line is that yesterday’s tweet storm — which in separate tweets also hinted at spurious allegations against MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack — simply demeans the office of president. That Trump either doesn’t care or sees some political advantage in this craziness is deeply troubling.