Trump Retweeted An Alt-Right Conspiracist's Post About Chicago Crime While Furor Mounted Over Charlottesville

By Stephen Gossett in News on Aug 15, 2017 3:30PM

Getty Images / Photo: Chip Somodevilla

While President Donald Trump was still facing the fallout over his initial, much-derided comments about the Charlottesville attacks, he took to Twitter again on Monday night. There, he seemingly attempted to deflect attention away from Charlottesville and back to the topic of Chicago crime, and he did so by retweeting an infamous, alt-right conspiracy theorist.

Trump retweeted a post by far-right figure Jack Posobiec, who has gained notoriety for pushing conspiracy theories about Pizzagate and the death of Democratic National Committee employee Seth Rich. Posobiec tweeted an article about weekend violence in Chicago, from local station ABC7. He added this commentary: "Meanwhile: 39 shootings in Chicago this weekend, 9 deaths. No national media outrage. Why is that?"

The Daily Beast reports that Posobiec, a Trump supporter, spent time over the weekend amplifying a false story that an "anti-Trump, open-borders drug addict" was responsible for the Charlottesville attack. (He has since deleted those tweets.) The Washington Post points out that Posobiec in the wake of Charlottesville called it “massive propaganda” for the anti-Trump left.

Trump meanwhile faced waves of criticism over his initial comments about Charlottesville, in which he said there was "violence on many sides." He specifically denounced white supremacists on Monday, after two days had passed since the tragedy in Virginia.

Chicago crime has been a frequent pivot point for Trump, even before he was elected president. The most recent previous instance came just last month when he asked "What the hell is going on in Chicago?" at a speech to law enforcement in Long Island. (There he also offered an updated spin on the "rough cookie" mystery cop who told him violence could be stopped in one week, according to Trump.) Trump asked the same question at a campaign-style event in Youngstown, Ohio just days prior.

"Chicago has become Trump and the alt-right's poster child for whataboutism," opined Zoe Galland, of Crain's Chicago Business.

Bishop Talbert Swan, a Massachusetts-based faith leader and president of the NAACP's Springfield chapter, tweeted, "We understand 'Chicago' is coded language to stereotype black people. It didn't take long for your true colors to show again."

It wasn't Trump's only eyebrow-raising retweet within the last several hours. The president on Tuesday morning also rather bizarrely retweeted a post in which one user called Trump a fascist. He's since deleted that one, of course, but you can see it preserved for posterity in the screenshot below.

This post has been updated.