Trump Defends 'Send Her Back' Chanters with Retweet of Katie Hopkins, Far-Right Commentator Who Called Migrants 'Cockroaches'
Trump Defends 'Send Her Back' Chanters with Retweet of Katie Hopkins, Far-Right Commentator Who Called Migrants 'Cockroaches'
President Donald Trump continued to defend himself and his supporters after racist chants broke out at his North Carolina campaign rally earlier this week, releasing a torrent of tweets and retweets Saturday morning that attempted to justify his inaction when those in attendance began to yell "send her back" in reference to Somali-born Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.
In his latest attempt to defend himself, however, Trump once again elevated the voice of Katie Hopkins, a far-right British commentator who has likened immigrants to rodents and cockroaches, encouraged law enforcement to racially profile the public and once tweeted a racist slur at a black man .
"As you can see, I did nothing to lead people on, nor was I particularly happy with their chant — just a very big and patriotic crowd. They love the USA!," Trump wrote, adding his commentary to a post from Hopkins with his 62 million twitter followers.
As you can see, I did nothing to lead people on, nor was I particularly happy with their chant. Just a very big and patriotic crowd. They love the USA! https:// twitter.com/kthopkins/stat us/1151738558501330945 …
Katie Hopkins
✔ @KTHopkins
New Campaign slogan for #2020?
“Don’t love it? Leave it!”
Send her back is the new lock her up.
Well done to # TeamTrump
The original tweet from Hopkins asserted that "Send her back is the new lock her up," a reference to the rallying cry Trump and his supporters used in 2016 to disparage opponent Hillary Clinton. Lest anyone think she was criticizing these chants, Hopkins concluded with the note "Well done to #TeamTrump."
A video attached to Hopkins' tweet shows the incendiary moment from Wednesday's rally, during which Trump accuses Omar of "launching vicious, anti-semitic screeds." The crowd then launches into the "send her back" chant, while Trump stands silently at the podium, allowing the chorus to grow.
The stunning moment irked some Republican lawmakers and, according to reports, those within Trump's inner circle. In the days since, the president has waffled between supporting those in attendance and distancing himself from their cries.
President Donald Trump takes the podium before speaking during a Keep America Great rally on July 17, 2019 in Greenville, North Carolina. Trump is speaking in North Carolina only hours after The House of Representatives voted down an effort from a Texas Democrat to impeach the President. Zach Gibson/Getty Images
In other Saturday morning tweets, Trump retweeted a 2-minute video spiel from Hopkins in which she argued, nonsensically, that a vote against Trump was a vote in favor of ISIS. The president also shared a tweet of Hopkins' that criticized London law enforcement and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, and yet another post in which Hopkins said, "How I wish we had such leadership in the U.K," referring to Trump.
It's not the first time the president has seemingly legitimized the perspective of the commentator. Earlier this month, he pushed forward her praise of far-right leaders, sparking another backlash.
As critics noted, the president dramatically expands Hopkins' reach on the social media site with each share. For the most part, her missives garner between a couple hundred and a couple of thousand likes; those retweeted by the president have earned tens of thousands. She currently has just under 1 million followers on the social media platform.
Donald Trump is retweeting Katie Hopkins, a woman who uses the slur "Jigga-boo,” and also Tweeted, “Dear black people. If your lives matter why do you stab and shoot each other so much?” https:// twitter.com/realdonaldtrum p/status/1152532958487748609 …
On Saturday, the term "Katie Hopkins" began to trend on Twitter, with scores of prominent users decrying the president's tacit endorsement.
George Conway, an attorney and notorious Trump critic who is married to White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway, was among the many social media users on Saturday to decry the elevation of Hopkins' writings.
"So the President is the United States is (again) retweeting a woman who once wrote a column saying migrants were "cockroaches" and "feral humans" and "spreading like the norovirus," and once tweeted, "Racial profiling is a good thing. Call me racist, I don't care."
Of course, whether the criticism bothers Trump remains to be seen. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed a resolution last Tuesday condemning the president for his "racist tweets" about four Democratic congresswomen of color, including Omar, but the censure apparently has done little to stymy his inflammatory use of the social media platform.
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Katie Hopkins, who the President quote tweets here, has said Jews were to blame for the Pittsburgh massacre because they supported immigration and called for a “final solution” for Muslims in the UK.
Katie Hopkins leaves LBC radio show after 'final solution' tweet
Broadcaster and columnist will no longer host weekly show, after causing outrage with response to Manchester attack
theguardian.comAs you can see, I did nothing to lead people on, nor was I particularly
Why didn't you hold Obama to this standard?
Did Obama retweet racists?
I don't know. He was probably too busy receiving guidance from them in person to Bother retweeting them.
Trump's tweet doesn't have anything to do with Katie Hopkins writings or sayings over the years. He simply retweeted a video of him that she posted. There is a reason for it, in case you missed it and he expressed that reason in his tweet: i.e. it pretty aptly shows that he was not encouraging the chant and took no satisfaction in it. Any other conclusions are just innuendo based on a loose association. The attempt to turn Trump into Hopkins based on this is really silly.
So if Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren retweets something from Louis Farrakhan you would be fine with that?
It is ludicrous, and all you are doing is showing the extent to which "conservatives" are willing to become abject toads of Donald Trump.
Trump can do nothing wrong in the eyes of his enthralled subjects.
No, I make no such sweeping policy declarations. I think on a little more sophisticated level than that. My assessment of any such retweet would depend on the totality of the circumstances.
That wouldn't include me. I'm critical of Trump all the time, but acknowledging that probably goes against your need to hate everyone totally who doesn't agree with you completely.
You'll believe what you want, I guess. Very often I find that partisan people accuse anyone who doesn't rabidly hate Trump of "defending" him.
I don't like Trump particularly, but I'm not in a big hurry to accuse anyone in particular of racism. I resist that accusation. When it comes to Trump, though, his political opponents (and their supporters) have gleefully accused him of racism based on thoroughly ordinary behavior. I don't go along with the crowd just to go along.
The fight for the moral foundation is what the 2020 election is going to boil down to. The US can and will survive just about anything else. But if we lose our foundation of fairness to all persons independent of color, creed, or race, then we lose the America that the Constitution says we should be.
Trump is using racial division to win. So you either stand strong against that division, or you are part of the problem Tacos.