Trump tweets clip of Florida supporter yelling ‘white power’
President Donald Trump shared a video in which a man participating in a pro-Trump golf cart parade in The Villages shouts “White power!” at people yelling profanities and calling Trump supporters “Nazis.”
President Donald Trump on Sunday retweeted a video shot in a sprawling Central Florida retirement community that shows one of his supporters yelling “White power!” while driving a golf cart and shaking a fist at the president’s critics.
“Thank you to the great people of The Villages,” Trump tweeted at 7:39 a.m. “The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe [Biden] is shot. See you soon!!!”
Trump later deleted his tweet. A White House spokesman said the president did not hear the “White power” chant.
Deere was asked but did not address why Trump deleted the video, or if he believes “White power” is a racist phrase.
“President Trump is a big fan of the Villages,” Judd Deere, deputy White House press secretary, wrote in an email. “He did not hear the one statement made on the video. What he did see was tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters.”
The 128-second video captures a caravan of golf carts driven by
Trump supporters in The Villages, a largely white, conservative retirement community. The Twitter user who posted the footage Saturday, @davenewworld_2, told the Miami Herald the video was taken during a June 14 event at Lake Sumter Landing Market Square and posted to the Villages-News.com
YouTube account. June 14th was Trump’s birthday, which some signs in the caravan acknowledged.
The clip shows the president’s supporters passing a line of hecklers who hurl profanities at the president. One woman wearing a shirt with “Black Lives Matter” scrawled across the front calls several of Trump’s supporters “Nazis” as they pass.
“Where’s your white hood?” shouts one heckler, just a few seconds into the
video. A man driving a golf cart festooned with Trump signs turns as he passes and, with his left fist cocked at a 90-degree angle, yells “White power! White power!”
The president’s amplification of the video comes as Black Lives Matter protests continue across the U.S. and in South Florida following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom
Perez issued a statement Sunday calling Trump’s tweet “indefensible” at a time when people are “seeking ways to address systemic racism and injustice.” Perez evoked Trump’s “fine people on both sides” comment after white nationalists violently clashed with protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia,. in 2017, as well as the recent crackdown by U.S. Park Police in Washington, D.C., against protesters outside the White House.
“This president tries to claim ignorance, but the consistency of his actions — on Charlottesville and most recently Lafayette Square — drown out his vacuous words,” Perez said.