President Trump on Sunday deleted a tweet that featured a video of grieving protests in Florida’s retirement community, The Villages, in which older people were yelling profanity and a man was heard yelling, “White power!”
Trump had written, “Thank you to the great folks at The Villages” in his post, but the White House later claimed it did not hear the phrase.
“President Trump is a big admirer of The Villages. He did not hear the only statement made in the video,” White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere said in a statement. “What he did see was tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters.”
When the video was shown on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday morning, Senator Tim Scott, RS.C., said the president “should simply remove it” and called the video “indefensible.” Soon after, the post disappeared from the Trump page.
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Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumed 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, claimed that Trump had “chosen a side” in “a battle for the soul” of the country, equating the president’s support for Florida protesters with his highly maligned response to deadly violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
“Today, the president shared a video of people screaming ‘white power’ and said they were ‘cool.'” Just like he did after Charlottesville, “Biden tweeted.” We are in a battle for the soul of the nation, and the President has chosen a side. But make no mistake: it is a battle that we will win. “
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Trump was criticized after saying there were “very good people on both sides” of the Charlottesville crash. Critics of the president generally omitted that after his reference to “very good people,” Trump said, “and I’m not talking about neo-Nazis and white nationalists, because they should be fully condemned.”
Kellianne Jones and The Associated Press of Fox News contributed to this report.
