Black GOP Senator Turns On Trump After ‘White Power’ Tweet

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Caleb Newton
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President Donald Trump continues to majorly fumble basic aspects of the presidency. On Sunday morning, Trump retweeted a video of one of his supporters shouting “white power!” during a tense confrontation in a Florida retirement community called The Villages, and he immediately drew criticism for amplifying the message, although it’s not entirely clear if he actually saw that part of the video before hitting retweet. During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union this Sunday morning, Tim Scott — the only black Republican Senator — called the president’s retweet “indefensible” and insisted that the president should take it down. Trump did eventually remove it.

Scott commented:

‘There’s no question he should not have retweeted it, and he should just take it down. If you watch the entire video — you can’t play it because it was so profanity-laced. The entire thing was offensive. Certainly the comment about the white power was offensive. There’s no question. We can play politics with it, or we can’t. I’m not going to. I think it’s indefensible, and he should take it down — that’s what I think.’

Watch below:

After criticism for the president’s retweet mounted, one White House spokesperson claimed that Trump had not seen the part of the video before he posted the video. White House spokesman Judd Deere claimed:

‘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.’

On the one hand, if Deere is lying and the president did see the “white power!” chant, then that’s obviously a major problem. But on the other hand, there’s still a problem if the president really didn’t see that part of the video, because it means he — as president of the United States — is so careless that he “accidentally” posted a video of someone shouting “white power!”

As former Obama administration official Julián Castro put it:

‘This isn’t ‘racially charged’, ‘racially tinged’ or sparked by ‘racial anxiety.’ This is racist, white supremacist language amplified by the President of the United States.’

Trump has, of course, had major problems with displaying racist behavior in the past. For example, he has insisted that certain Congresswomen of color should “go back” where they came from and “fix” the governments there before they concern themselves with the United States. After Trump put on that particular gross display of racism, he got a formal condemnation from the U.S. House for his behavior.

One of the Congresswomen who he targeted — New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — responded at the time:

‘Mr. President, the country I “come from,” & the country we all swear to, is the United States. But given how you’ve destroyed our border with inhumane camps, all at a benefit to you & the corps who profit off them, you are absolutely right about the corruption laid at your feet.’

At no point throughout any of this tumult has the president displayed any kind of real remorse for his repeated displays of racism.



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