U.S. President Donald Trump posted a video of some of his supporters clashing with protesters at The Villages in Florida, where one of the pro-Trump demonstrators could be heard shouting “white power.”
The video showed a series of Trump supporters traveling by golf cart past protesters advocating for the Black Lives Matter movement and holding signs calling Trump a racist and bigot. In the opening seconds of the video, a man driving a golf cart with “Trump 2020” and “America First” posters on the front pumped his fist and yelled the words “White power” at least two times while clashing with the anti-Trump protesters.
The video drew an immediate pushback, with many calling out Trump for posting a video with overtly racist messages.
“Our President is openly working to help a deadly virus spread that has killed 120,000,” tweeted Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy.
“Russia is putting bounties on the heads of American soldiers and he seems ok with it. He’s distributing white power videos. And that’s just the last 48 HOURS.”
Others joined Murphy in noting that Trump’s incendiary tweet came after reports that Russia had offered bounties to Afghan militants for killing U.S. soldiers stationed there, including reports that Trump had been informed about it but did nothing in retaliation. Trump denied the reports, saying he had known nothing about it and questioning whether the reports may have been fake.
Some questioned whether Trump’s sharing of the video with overtly racist and white supremacist messages was meant as a diversion. Others noted that it highlighted the difficulty the president faces, as an area of Florida that would have normally been very supportive of his reelection is now rocked with clear opposition to him.
The video came from The Villages, a sprawling retirement community in Sumter County, Florida. It showed a small group of protesters holding signs in support of Black Lives Matter and in opposition to Trump while a series of Trump supporters rode past them, leading the two sides to shout at each other. The clashes grew contentious, with one woman wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt at one point standing in front of a golf cart driven by a Trump supporter, not allowing him to continue past.
Trump has come under fire for sharing racist content in the past, including a fabricated graphic of “Black crime” stats during the 2016 presidential campaign. As The Inquisitr reported, Trump refused to apologize for sharing the graphic, which was later connected to a neo-Nazi Twitter user.
Earlier this week, Trump retweeted a video of violence committed against white people, questioning why no one was protesting it.