“Thank you to the great people of The Villages. The Radical Left Do Nothing Democrats will Fall in the Fall. Corrupt Joe is shot. See you soon!!” he wrote in the tweet.
CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.
The US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar responded to the video played on CNN’s “State of the Union” with Jake Tapper on Sunday.
“I’ve not seen that video or that tweet, but obviously neither the President, his administration nor I would do anything to be supportive of white supremacy or anything that would support discrimination of any kind,” Azar said.
Azar declined to comment further when Tapper asked if it was a mistake by the President. “But obviously the President and I and his whole administration would stand against any acts of white supremacy.”
Former national security adviser John Bolton told Tapper later on the same program that it’s possible that Trump tweeted the video because he saw a “Trump 2020” sign and had not paid attention.
“It may be that you can draw a conclusion that he heard it, and it was racist, and he tweeted it to promote the message. It is a legitimate conclusion to draw. It is also entirely legitimate to say he just had no idea what else was in the video other than the Trump sign,” Bolton said.
Amid nationwide protests over racial injustice and police brutality this month, the President has retrenched into divisive themes instead of seeking a unifying tone.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Manu Raju, Kevin Liptak, Ryan Nobles and Donald Judd contributed to this report.
