President Donald Trump is facing a swift backlash and accusations of racism again after reposting a series of videos featuring Black people either behaving badly or engaged in criminal activity.
The president took to his Truth Social platform Monday night, May 11, on a late-night racist social media rant.
One video he reposted shows an overweight man tipping a tray out of a server’s hands on the way out of a restaurant. As the tray with food and dishes crashes to the floor, the server watches in stunned silence as the culprit walks out the door.
“I wouldn’t call him a man! A real man would never disrespect another person like this. I’ll call him what he is, a POS!,” the video caption says.
Trump reposted another video that shows a restaurant worker confronting a Black DoorDash driver who picked up food for an order, then apparently canceled it once she got outside the eatery, with the caption, “Always scheming…” The worker goes outside and catches the driver in her car with another woman eating the food. A fight breaks out.
A third video Trump resent shows Black kids stealing snacks from a Wawa convenience store, posted by an X user named Tara Bull with the caption, “This is why the convenience store chain ‘Wawa’ is closing stores one after another.”
It’s unclear why the president reposted the videos or what he was trying to say, but critics point out it’s yet another example of Trump’s inherent racism and white supremacist tendencies. Others question the authenticity of the videos.
Journalist Aaron Rupar posted the videos on Threads with the question, “Why is the president sharing these videos on social media?”
View on Threads
And another user quickly and sarcastically reposted it with the caption, “Trump is posting some kids stealing $50 dollars worth of candy at the Wawa. If he thinks that’s bad, wait til he hears about a billionaire who invented a sh-tty Memecoin, told all of his cult followers to buy it, then rugged-pulled it, and made off with a billion dollars while they all lost their money.”
Needless to say, the response was overwhelming.
“Uh…. because he’s an old, white racist?” another Threads user commented on Rupar’s question.
Threads poster Bea said, “Inciting more division and trying to appeal to his racist cult, that’s why.”
But she wasn’t done, “Because they’re losing farms and paying near record high prices for gas and food while losing their health insurance, but hey, they still have racism in common, so he has to show them he’s still their guy. The bigger question is, why is this behavior allowed from the ‘president’ of these United States?!”
User Laurie Marie Hartwell had a different theory: “He wants to continue to divide people. He wants us to hate each other so we will turn against each other.”
This user wondered, “What tf is his algorithm? ‘Black crimes?’”
Even though Trump has claimed he’s “the least racist person” and repeatedly denied engaging in racist speech and actions, his latest posts are part of a long history of bigotry dating back to the 1970s.
The Justice Department sued Trump, his father, and their company, Trump Management, in 1973, for alleged racial discrimination against Black people looking to rent apartments. According to the government, the Trumps engaged in an alleged “systemic” pattern of racism against Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and other non-whites.
The Trumps denied the charges but settled the lawsuit without admitting guilt.
According to the Brookings Institution, Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was “clearly driven by racism, sexism, and xenophobia.” Some experts attributed Trump’s success to economic anxiety. Brookings reported that supporters identified more with his anti-immigrant sentiment, racism, and sexism.
Just this year, in early February, Trump was the target of bipartisan backlash for posting a 2020 election conspiracy video that ended with a two-second clip showing former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as apes.
Trump claimed he didn’t see the last part of the video he posted, but he ended up removing it from his Truth Social platform as the outcry grew louder.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has repeatedly denied that Trump is racist, including after the Obama video post.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from ‘The Lion King,’” Leavitt said in a statement to Newsweek. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
During a Feb. 18 press conference, she said critics had “falsely called and smeared” Trump as a racist.
