The world has learned by now that Trump’s Twitter feed knows no bounds.
If you recall, on Nov. 29, Trump retweeted three anti-Muslim videos first posted by Jayda Fransen, the deputy leader of the far-right, anti-immigration group Britain First. Outrage ensued, especially from the U.K. — many members of the British government demanded an apology.
“It is wrong for the president to have done this,” the spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May said. “Britain First seeks to divide communities through their use of hateful narratives which peddle lies and stoke tensions. They cause anxiety to law-abiding people.”
But in a “Good Morning Britain” interview with Piers Morgan during his trip to Davos this week, Trump apparently apologized after all.
Wait, what happened again?
The three videos (now deleted from Twitter) that Trump retweeted were titled, “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!”, “Muslim destroys a statue of Virgin Mary!” and “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!”
Fransen told Reuters she was “delighted” because Trump’s retweets showed his shared goal of bringing awareness to “issues such as Islam,” but press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that she didn’t think Trump knew who Fransen was when he retweeted the videos — she was found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment in 2016 for verbally abusing a Mulim woman in a hijab.
Sanders also stated that Trump didn’t verify facts in the videos before sharing them. The video of a Muslim immigrant assaulting a Dutch boy on crutches was red flagged by police in the Netherlands who said the assaulter was neither Muslim nor an immigrant. He was reportedly Dutch.
“Look, I’m not talking about the nature of the video,” Sanders told reporters. “The threat is real and that’s what the president is talking about is the need for national security, the need for military spending, and those are very real things. There’s nothing fake about that.”
So did Trump actually apologize?
Morgan, who actually tweeted at Trump the day he posted the videos to “Please STOP this madness and undo your retweets,” classified the president’s words as a public apology.
Good morning, Mr President @realDonaldTrump – what the hell are you doing retweeting a bunch of unverified videos by Britain First, a bunch of disgustingly racist far-right extremists?
Please STOP this madness & undo your retweets.— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) November 29, 2017
BREAKING NEWS:
President Trump has publicly apologised for retweeting far-right group Britain First.
Says he didn’t know who they were. ‘I don’t want to be involved with these people. If you’re telling me they’re horrible racist people. I certainly apologise.’ pic.twitter.com/S1apSWC7rR— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 26, 2018
“Given the amount of offense it caused, do you regret now those retweets, and do you wish, with hindsight, that you hadn’t done it?” Morgan asked.
Trump replied, “It was done because I am a big believer in fighting radical Islamic terror. This was a depiction of radical Islamic terror.”
When Morgan quickly pointed out that at least one of the videos was unverified, Trump said, “I didn’t do it, I did a retweet.” He continued on to tell Morgan that this wasn’t a big story in the U.S. like it was in the U.K. (Debatable.)
“The real me is someone who loves Britain, who loves the U.K.,” Trump said. “I don’t want to cause any difficulty for your country.”
When Morgan asked for an apology for enraging much of the U.K., Trump complied…to an extent. “Here’s what’s fair. If you’re telling me these are horrible people — horrible, racist people — I would certainly apologize, if you’d like me to do that,” he said of Britain First. “I know nothing about them. I know nothing about these people.”
During the interview, which will air on Sunday, Jan. 28, Trump also said he has a very good relationship with Prime Minister May despite what people think.
Before the apology, when Morgan told the president that the situation made it look as though he was endorsing Britain First and racism, Trump asserted, “As I say often, I am the least racist person that anybody’s going to meet.”
