A Donald Trump supporter was caught on camera making a ‘white power’ gesture while the president was on stage in Florida.
The man, in sunglasses and a black baseball cap, was standing directly behind Trump on Friday evening as he addressed a crowd at The Villages, the world’s largest retirement community, near Orlando.
In June, Trump got into hot water after retweeting a clip of a man in The Villages riding a golf buggy and yelling: ‘White power’. Trump deleted the clip soon after.
On Friday, as the president railed against Joe Biden and urged his followers to grant him four more years, the man began making an ‘OK’ sign – the thumb and index finger touching while the other fingers of the hand are held outstretched.
The common symbol is now known to be a ‘white power’ sign.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the symbol was said in a 2017 joke on the chat site 4chan to represent ‘wp’ – the ‘w’ being the three fingers, and the ‘p’ being the circled thumb and index finger.
‘The hoax was so successful the symbol became a popular trolling tactic on the part of right-leaning individuals, who would often post photos to social media of themselves posing while making the ‘okay’ gesture,’ the ADL say.
They note that Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant flashed the symbol during a March 2019 courtroom appearance soon after his arrest for allegedly murdering 50 people in a shooting spree at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The White House has not responded to Friday night’s ‘white power’ gesture.
In June they claimed Trump didn’t hear the ‘white power’ comment at The Villages, and was instead focused on the support he was witnessing from citizens of the Florida senior community.
In a video that was retweeted by Trump, tne senior citizen yells ‘white power,’ as the golf-cart passenger chants ‘Trump.’
‘There you go, white power. Did you hear that?’ a counter protester standing by the side of the procession responded in awe.
Trump deleted the tweet after outcry on social media – including from those within his own party.
Tim Scott, the sole black GOP Senator, denounced Trump for posting the video – claiming he should take it down.
‘There’s no question, he should not have retweeted and he should just take it down,’ the South Carolina senator told CNN at the time.
‘Does it offend you, though?’ State of the Union host Jake Tapper asked Scott. ‘I mean, it offends me – and I’m white.’
‘You can’t play it, because it was so profanity-laced. The entire thing was offensive – particularly the comment about white power was offensive.’
Scott said: ‘It is indefensible, we should take it down.’
Piers Morgan, once an avid defender of the president, also bashed Trump for the tweet.
‘One of those ‘great people’ shouts ‘WHITE POWER!’ Are you endorsing that, Mr President?’ the British broadcast journalist tweeted.