Bubba Wallace: Trump tweet ‘wrong on the factual information’ about noose

NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace says the tweet President Trump posted earlier this week criticizing him over the handling of an incident in which a noose was found in his garage stall was “wrong on the factual information.”

Pressed for his thoughts on the tweet on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” by guest host Anthony Anderson on Tuesday, Wallace said, “When I first read it, I was, you know, just like, ‘Man there’s so much more things that are going on in the world that I feel like he should be worried about.’”

“But it’s hard to get people to understand, especially when the facts are delivered on the table and they’ve been there for two weeks now, so to be late to the party is one thing and to be wrong on the factual information is another.”

Guest Host @AnthonyAnderson talks with @BubbaWallace about Trump attacking him on Twitter, the noose that was found in his garage, and the love he has gotten from the @NASCAR community… pic.twitter.com/121rGyC7Tv

— Jimmy Kimmel Live (@JimmyKimmelLive) July 8, 2020

Trump went after Wallace, the only Black driver in the racing league’s top series, on Twitter Monday and pressured him to apologize, while falsely calling a June incident that involved a noose being discovered in his garage stall a “hoax.”

“Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX?” Trump said.

Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX? That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2020

NASCAR first announced in late June that a noose had been found in a garage stall assigned to Wallace at the Talladega Superspeedway. The discovery, which came amid widespread protests against racial inequality following multiple police killings of Black Americans, prompted the FBI to launch an investigation into the incident.

The FBI later determined that the noose had been in the stall since October and that Wallace was not the target of a hate crime.

But NASCAR leadership has made clear since then that the noose was in fact “real” and released a photo of it. 

In his interview this week, Wallace said that he wasn’t even the person who first reported the noose.

“It was brought to me after the garage was already closed,” he said.

Wallace said he didn’t know about the noose until after NASCAR President Steve Phelps brought it to his attention and he didn’t even see it until after his “second phone call with the FBI.”