This morning Trump retweeted videos of purported Muslim on non-Muslim violence by the leader of Britain First.
Here’s a screenshot:
I’ll post the actual tweets at the bottom so you can watch them for yourselves.
After Trump retweeted these videos, outrage ensued in Britain:
DAILY MAIL – Ministers today faced demands to cancel Donald Trump’s State Visit after the US President retweeted anti-Muslim videos posted by a far-right UK group.
MPs insisted Mr Trump was ‘not welcome here’ following the Twitter posts, while the widow of murdered politician Jo Cox accused him of ‘spreading hatred’.
The furious backlash came after the 71-year-old President retweeted content posted by Britain First deputy leader Jayda Fransen.
Labour MP Jo Cox was stabbed and shot outside her constituency office in Birstall, West Yorkshire, in June last year by a man who shouted ‘Britain First’.
The first video retweeted by Mr Trump purportedly shows a ‘Muslim migrant’ beating up a Dutch boy on crutches.
Mr Trump also retweeted a video of a Muslim man ‘destroy(ing) a statue of Virgin Mary’, and another where Ms Fransen wrote: ‘Islamist mob pushed teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!’ The provenance of the footage is unknown.
The row casts fresh doubt on the prospects for Mr Trump’s state visit, which has been repeatedly pushed back since Prime Minister Theresa May extended the invite in January.
Speaker John Bercow has already made clear he would block the President from getting the honour of addressing both Houses of Parliament if he does come.
Mrs May did not take PMQs in the Commons today because she is on a trip to the Middle East, but Downing Street said it would respond later.
I would also guess that there was outrage in the White House as well after Trump retweeted these videos. After all, we know that some in Trump’s world are very sympathetic to Muslims, like Tillerson and McMaster. I can’t believe they were happy about him retweeting this.
Sarah Sanders addressed this a few minutes ago:
Question on President Trump's retweets this morning: Does it matter if it's a fake video?
— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 29, 2017
Sarah Sanders: "I'm not talking about the nature of the video. I think you're focusing on the wrong thing. The threat is real, and that's what the President is talking about." pic.twitter.com/Nh2YyuLD01
He’s not saying anything, he’s just retweeting videos!
Look, I’m all for exposing the truth about Islam to those who refuse to hear it. And I don’t want to go so far as to suggest this isn’t Trump’s job to do this, as I believe it is.
But as I watch some of these videos, especially the one where they are beating up the young man on crutches, it’s not apparent from the video that it is what it’s being claimed to be. Perhaps it is, but there’s no evidence offered.
As for the other two videos, there’s just no context around them. Trump simply retweets the videos without saying anything about them, taking the word of this Britain First deputy leader.
If Trump wants to expose jihadi violence like this, then he should do it properly by using verified footage and explaining what it is and why he’s tweeting it. He shouldn’t just haphazardly just retweet stuff on Twitter.
Here are the videos:
https://twitter.com/JaydaBF/status/935609305574903812
https://twitter.com/JaydaBF/status/935805606447013888
https://twitter.com/JaydaBF/status/935775552102981633