Ex-NAACP leader: Trump ‘blowing a racial dog whistle’

Former NAACP President Cornell Williams Brooks on Tuesday accused President Trump of “blowing a racial dog whistle” with his retweeting of a promotor of “alt-right” conspiracy theories.

“The president is again blowing a racial dog whistle right after he gave that denunciation of white supremacy yesterday,” Brooks, a CNN contributor, said on the network’s “New Day” program.

Trump on Tuesday, a day after condemning white supremacist organizers of a violent rally in Charlottesville, Va., shared a tweet by Jack Prosobiec that included a story about this past weekend’s shootings in Chicago.

{mosads}Prosobiec, who has promoted discredited theories about the Democratic National Committee hacking and “pizzagate,” asked why there wasn’t more media outrage about the weekend violence in Chicago, which left nine dead and 30 wounded. 

Chicago has struggled with shootings for years, and this weekend’s violence was just the latest example.

The violence in Charlottesville this past weekend, in contrast, involved groups of Nazis and white supremacists who clashed with counterprotestors, leaving one dead and dozens injured.

One man affiliated with the white supremacist groups has been charged with second-degree murder for allegedly driving a car into a crowd, killing one woman and injuring 19 others. 

Brooks said retweeting Posobiec was “seemingly as an excuse for anti-black racism.”

Brooks added that Trump’s retweet is “very disappointing” but fits in with a longstanding pattern.

“The president is unwilling to give up this segment of his base,” he added. “He’s trying to have his hate cake and eat it too.”