Donald Trump’s ‘White Power’ Retweet Stayed Up For Hours Because WH Reportedly Couldn’t Reach Him At Golf Club
President Donald Trump retweeted a video showing one of his supporters shouting “white power” at anti-Trump protesters on Sunday morning. The tweet stayed up for hours and purportedly caused a “five-alarm fire” in the White House. According to an NBC News report, one official said the reason it remained up for more than three hours is that officials apparently could not get ahold of him on the golf course to delete it.
The video showed a parade of Trump supporters driving down a road in Florida in golf carts. Many of them had signs supporting the president and his reelection bid. Lining the parade of golf carts were several anti-Trump protesters holding up signs and shouting messages against the president.
As one cart proceeded down the route, the man driving shouted “white power” several times. The video was retweeted by Trump, and he commented with thank you for the support from his fans.
The message was immediately met with an intense backlash from those who accused the president of spreading racist and hateful messages. Despite the widespread concern from those both in and out of the government, the video stayed on the president’s official page, available to his 82 million followers, for over three hours before eventually being deleted.
While the president was at a golf club in Virginia and out of communication, several aides also reportedly tried to contact deputy chief of staff Dan Scovino to ask him to delete the retweet. However, no one was able to reach him, either.
After several hours, officials were able to contact the president, and he agreed to remove the tweet. White House officials later said that Trump had retweeted the message because he did not hear the person say “white power” and wanted to show some support for his followers.
“White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and senior adviser Jared Kushner were among those trying to contain the fallout. McEnany said Monday that Trump had watched the video before retweeting it but didn’t hear his supporter say ‘white power,'” the NBC report noted.
The entire situation has apparently caused those in Trump’s circle to be much more cautious.
“Officials said the president gets a deluge of content from aides and allies, with one of them saying the ‘white power’ incident was a ‘lesson to all of us in the White House to be more aware of what’s out there,'” NBC also reported.
