Donald Trump has made what could be his most controversial tweets yet — and that’s saying something.The Twitter fanatic, who is also president of the United States, hit the retweet button early Wednesday, circulating three tweets from extreme-right group “Britain First.”The tweets, from the group’s deputy leader Jayda Fransen, show unverified videos with the titles “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!”, “Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary!”, and “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!”Jayda Fransen has already been convicted of hate crimes in the U.K., and is facing more charges.British Prime Minister Theresa May is currently in Iraq, but a spokesman for Downing Street said it was “wrong” for President Trump to have retweeted Fransen. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended the tweets, saying: “Whether it’s a real video, the threat is real and that is what the president is talking about.”“Britain First” was launched in 2011 by former members of a failed nationalist political party. It’s mainly known for its flag-waving marches and publicity stunts outside mosques, all in the name of campaigning, in its own words, for “patriotic resistance” and against “the rapid growth of militant Islam.”Many of its posts online end up reaching several million people. But its influence on British remains questionable.
This segment originally aired November 29, 2017, on VICE News Tonight on HBO.
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