Late on Monday night, President Donald Trump retweeted a right-wing conspiracy theorist, Jack Posobiec, who said that the media focus on the violence in Charlottesville this weekend was ignoring the violence in Chicago.
“Meanwhile: 39 shootings in Chicago this weekend, 9 deaths. No national media outrage. Why is that,” Posobiec tweeted Monday morning, along with a news article from WLS-TV.
–Twitter pressures Trump to #FireBannon amid Charlottesville hate–
Trump retweeted Posobiec’s tweet, which had many raising eyebrows, especially considering the public backlash against his initial response to the tragedy in Charlottesville. Trump was widely criticized for saying that the violence was a result of anger and hatred on “many sides,” rather than coming out against the white supremacists who had been on the streets inciting violence in the first place.
After the backlash, on Monday, Trump issued another statement, this time specifically denouncing hate groups like neo-Nazis and the KKK.
Comedian Chelsea Handler slammed Trump on Tuesday for his tweets, saying, “A girl dies in (Charlottesville)and our president retweets two neo-nazi’s who are dancing around celebrating her death.”
The tweet was issued shortly after Trump said that it was “good to be home.” He had returned to Manhattan in the middle of his “working vacation.”