WASHINGTON — On a weekend when the nation was bracing for the approaching toll of 100,000 lives misplaced to the coronavirus and honoring the vario
WASHINGTON — On a weekend when the nation was bracing for the approaching toll of 100,000 lives misplaced to the coronavirus and honoring the various extra individuals who have died in wars, President Trump amplified a collection of demeaning private assaults from a supporter with a historical past of racist and sexist on-line commentary.
Mr. Trump reposted eight tweets from John Ok. Stahl, a conservative former political candidate, together with assaults on Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Stacey Abrams, the black former minority chief of the Georgia Home of Representatives who is taken into account a possible Democratic vice-presidential choose.
Mr. Stahl, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in California’s 52nd District in 2012, has a historical past of derogatory posts, particularly towards black girls. He has referred on-line to Senator Kamala Harris of California — who’s of Indian and Jamaican descent and is one other potential operating mate for Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee — as “Willie’s Ho,” an obvious reference to Willie Brown, the highly effective California State Meeting speaker who was her mentor and onetime boyfriend.
Mr. Stahl has referred to as Ms. Abrams “Shamu” and posted racist remarks about Pleasure Reid, the African-American MSNBC host. “Whenever you’re born butt ugly, altering your coiffure each day is just going to make you look phonier than you nonsense, pathetic present,” he wrote of Ms. Reid, calling her a “skank.”
Among the many posts Mr. Trump retweeted on Saturday, one accused Ms. Pelosi of sporting dentures and consuming “booze on the job.” One other mocked Ms. Abrams’s look by saying that she “visited each buffet restaurant within the State” throughout her unsuccessful marketing campaign for Georgia governor, and that Mr. Biden could be “a racist if he doesn’t choose her” as his operating mate.
Mr. Trump additionally retweeted one other submit from Mr. Stahl that referred to Mr. Biden as “Malarkey the Racist” and referred to as Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, “HRC the Skank.”
Mr. Stahl didn’t instantly reply to a web based message searching for remark. He was one more particular person whose posts denigrating girls and other people of colour — significantly black girls — with foul and juvenile insults appeared to resonate with Mr. Trump, even because the president and his marketing campaign have been attempting to model Mr. Biden a racist due to a gaffe he made in an interview on Friday.
“You probably have an issue determining whether or not you’re for me or Trump, then you definately ain’t black,” Mr. Biden said in an interview with Charlamagne Tha God, a host on “The Breakfast Club,” a nationally syndicated morning show that is popular with black millennials. Mr. Biden later apologized for the remark. Mr. Trump’s campaign has mounted aggressive pushback efforts to portray Mr. Biden as racist.
It was a somber Memorial Day weekend, when most Americans were still stuck in their homes and anxious about states beginning to reopen their economies — especially black Americans, who have been disproportionately affected by the coronavirus. But Mr. Trump’s Twitter feed made no mention of the lives lost or the grim milestone that the country was approaching.
Instead, he spent both Saturday and Sunday golfing at his private club in Virginia, his first visit there since the pandemic led the government to close most of the country. Television cameras caught footage of Mr. Trump, dressed in a polo shirt and white cap, cruising around on a golf cart and at one point waving at the camera.
Outside the club on Sunday, one protester held up a sign that read, “I care do you, 100,000 dead.”
When he returned to the White House on Saturday, Mr. Trump was active online, even revisiting debunked conspiracy theories about Joe Scarborough, the MSNBC host, implying that he was under investigation for murdering a former staff member in 2001. “A blow to her head? Body found under his desk? Left Congress suddenly? Big topic of discussion in Florida,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “Massive matter of debate in Florida…and, he’s a Nut Job (with dangerous scores) Maintain digging, use forensic geniuses!”
In actuality, the aide’s dying was dominated an accident, and the police have by no means suspected foul play.
Mr. Trump has additionally continued to stoke fears of immigrants and spotlight racist voices as a part of his re-election strategy, together with individuals like Katie Hopkins, a far-right British commentator who has denounced Muslims and migrants, and whom Mr. Trump has ceaselessly retweeted up to now.