Black GOP Senator Blasts Trump For Retweeting Racist 'White Power' Video: 'It’s Indefensible'

Sen. Tim Scott from South Carolina, the lone African-American Republican senator, assailed as "indefensible" President Donald Trump's Sunday retweet of a video showing a white man twice shouting the white supremacist chant of "White power!" when confronted by protestors denouncing racism.

Along with the video, Trump tweeted: "Thank you to the great people of The Villages." He also said, “The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is shot. See you soon!!!”

The encounter between the pro-Trumpers and anti-racism protestors took place at The Villages, a planned community in Sumter County, Florida that's more than 95% white. African-Americans comprise less than 1% of the population of more than 50,000 persons.

The video shows a parade through The Villages with Trump supporters riding golf carts, wearing red, white and blue shirts, and parading Trump campaign posters. Protesters lined the road, many of them screaming insults and blasting Trump supporters as racists. Some held signs aloft calling Trump a bigot.

The video also shows protestors on both sides shouting profanities at each other. An anti-racism protestor yells, “Where’s your white hood?” and unleashes other taunts.

A man in the golf cart pumps his fist in the air and yells “White power!” twice. The golf cart is festooned with signs proclaiming “Trump 2020” and “America First," said The New York Times.

"There's no question that he should not have retweeted it and he should just take it down," said Scott to CNN.

"It was so profanity-laced, the entire thing was offensive," he pointed out. "Certainly, the comment about the white power was offensive. It's indefensible. We should take it down."

Trump deleted the retweet three hours after posting and an hour after Scott went public with his criticism. But not before Trump's critics pounced on his example of condoning white supremacists.

Former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted: "Just when you think Trump cannot be more vile or racist, he outdoes himself. This morning he shared a video in which a supporter of his yells, 'white power.' Let us stand together and make certain that this 'stable genius' is defeated, and defeated badly, in November."

Civil rights groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) also blasted Trump. Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACPP Legal Defense and Education Fund, told CBS' "Face the Nation" the incident "is not about the president taking it down. This is about the judgment of the president in putting it up."

She also said the tweet is "about what the president believes and it's time for this country to really face that."

The White House's defense of Trump's retweet was that he didn't hear the man shout, "White power!" in the video.

"He did not hear the one statement made on the video," claimed White House spokesman Judd Deere. "What he did see was tremendous enthusiasm from his many supporters."