White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Monday morning told Fox News that the reason why President Donald Trump tweeted a video featuring one of his supporters chanting “white power” is that he was trying to voice support for his “demonized” supporters.
The president sparked intense backlash on Sunday morning when he shared a clip of residents of Central Florida senior community The Villages confronting protesters. At the beginning of the clip, one of the residents repeatedly shouts out the racist catchphrase, prompting Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) to publicly call for Trump to take down the tweet.
Roughly an hour after Scott made his remarks on CNN’s State of the Union, the tweet was deleted. White House spokesperson Judd Deere attempted to clean up the mess by claiming Trump “did not hear the one statement made on the video,” adding that the president “is a big fan of The Villages” and only saw the “tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters.”
ADVERTISEMENT
During her appearance on the president’s favorite morning show Fox & Friends, McEnany was asked by co-host Ainsley Earhardt to react to Trump sharing the clip.
“The president tweeted out that tweet yesterday and took it down if you played it, it was a guy saying white supremacy and another woman or saying white power,” Earhardt said, teeing up McEnany. “And the woman was yelling obscenities because she doesn’t like the president at some of the guys in the parade down in The Villages. What’s the president’s response? Did he know what he was tweeting—did he accidentally tweet that?”
The press secretary, meanwhile, asserted Trump “did not hear the phrase” in the video and took the tweet down when it was signaled to him. At the same time, she said, the president made it “very clear” to her that “he stands with the people of The Villages” because they support him.
“He stands for them and his point in tweeting out that video was to stand with his supporters, who are oftentimes demonized, so he took it down but he does stand with the men and women of The Villages,” she concluded.
