Donald Trump Claims Not To Know Who Proud Boys Are But Tells Them To ‘Stand By’
During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Donald Trump told the right-wing extremist organization Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” after being pressed to condemn white supremacy by moderator Chris Wallace. After a backlash, the president told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that he was not aware of the fraternal organization, but did tell them to “stand down,” Al Jazeera reported.
“I don’t know who the Proud Boys are, if you want to give me a definition… Because I really don’t know who they are,” he said. “I can only say they have to stand down, let law enforcement do their work. Law enforcement will do their work.”
Per The Inquisitr, the Proud Boys took Trump’s comments at the Tuesday debate as words of encouragement and integrated them with their logo less than an hour after the conclusion of the debate. The new logo was highlighted on Twitter by Taylor Hatmaker, a reporter for Tech Crunch.
The Proud Boys consists of self-described Western chauvinists and has been deemed a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and as extremists by the FBI. As reported by The Guardian, the Anti-Defamation League claims that the fraternal organization is anti-immigration, Islamophobic, and misogynistic.
“It is one of a sheaf of far-right groups with ready access to legal firearms in the US and with overtly pro-Trump or libertarian stances and an affinity for presenting as vigilantes or paramilitaries, especially during far-right gatherings or when showing up to disrupt liberal-leaning protests.”
According to Trump, violence for far-left militant groups like Antifa are the most significant threat to the United States. As reported by BBC, Proud Boys have clashed with the left-wing militants on multiple occasions. Last month, self-described Antifa member 48-year-old Michael Reinoehl killed a member of Patriot Prayer — a right-wing group that frequently marches with the Proud Boys.
Trump’s view of Antifa is at odds with his appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray. In July of last year, Wray admitted that the majority of domestic terrorism cases investigated by the bureau are linked to Caucasian supremacists.
Wray’s admission came after Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin pointed to a May 2017 FBI/DHS intelligence report that found white supremacists were linked to more homicides than any other group during the period of 2000 to 2016. At the time, the FBI director said that arrests for terrorism related to Caucasian supremacists were roughly equal to those connected to jihadi-inspired extremists.
