Donald Trump retweeted three particularly horrible videos on Wednesday, one of which was an apparent snuff video depicting an "Islamist mob" committing a brutal murder. The video was originally posted by Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of the notorious far-right British political activist group Britain First. The ultranationalist party is known is for its rampant Islamaphobic sentiment and "anti-terrorism" rallies.
The other two videos the president retweeted, also posted by Fransen, were similar in nature, captioned “Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!” and “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!” Per The Daily Beast, the Dutch media is reporting that the offender in the latter video is neither Muslim nor an immigrant. The third video, the most gruesome of the bunch, is labeled “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!”—and it was filmed in Egypt in 2013.
Fransen was overjoyed at the exposure Trump’s retweets gave her videos, tweeting in all caps: “THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, DONALD TRUMP, HAS RETWEETED THREE OF DEPUTY LEADER JAYDA FRANSEN’S TWITTER VIDEOS! DONALD TRUMP HIMSELF HAS RETWEETED THESE VIDEOS AND HAS AROUND 44 MILLION FOLLOWERS! GOD BLESS YOU TRUMP! GOD BLESS AMERICA!”
The Daily Beast also reports that Fransen has been convicted of religiously aggravated harassment after abusing a woman wearing a headscarf during an anti-Islam rally and “Christian patrol” in London. These patrols involve members of Britain First taking to the streets to berate non-Christians. In court, Fransen admitted she told the headscarfed woman she was being forced to wear the attire because Muslim men “cannot control their sexual urges...that’s why they are coming into my country raping women across the continent.”
UK Prime Minister Theresa May condemned Trump’s actions via a spokersperson.
UK PM's spokesman on POTUS retweeting Britain First:
"It is wrong for the President to have done this."
Trump's decision to retweet something from such a violent and far-right group was so unpopular it was also denounced by some of Trump’s supporters.
Sentient garbage can Piers Morgan, who has been known to defend Trump at times and appeared on Celebrity Apprentice, was staunchly against the retweet as well as Britain First as a whole.
Do you know what Britain First is, Mr President @realDonaldTrump?
If you do, then you must realise your endorsement of them today makes you a racist & Islamophobe too. Are you? https://t.co/uWi7InidBc pic.twitter.com/lIAdWroTWg
Todays's retweets are a tipping point, for sure.
If Trump doesn't recant, we must assume he endorses fascism & Islamophobia. https://t.co/PZhgqbAvdJ
InfoWars, a blog run by conspiracy theorist and Trump supporter Alex Jones, also rebuked the president for tweeting the snuff film. Editor-at-Large Paul Joseph Watson said it was “not great optics” but also implied it wasn’t the president himself who retweeted the video and instead “whoever is running Trump’s Twitter account this morning.”
Yeah, someone might want to tell whoever is running Trump's Twitter account this morning that retweeting Britain First is not great optics. 🤔
