Britain First deputy head: Trump retweets show ‘support for my plight’

The deputy leader of the ultranationalist U.K. group Britain First says she believes President Trump is supporting her after he retweeted a series of videos from her purporting to show Muslims engaging in violence. 

“I believe President Donald Trump has very graciously shown his support for my plight here in the U.K.,” Jayda Fransen told HBO’s “Vice News Tonight” on Wednesday. 

“The point is President Trump has retweeted a number of my videos, my content, which highlight the dangers of mass Muslim immigration, which is something Donald Trump himself has pointed out,” she continued. 

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“The news story here is that the leader of the free world has just expressed his support for an individual who — I’m an elected deputy leader of a British political party, and I am being sent to jail for giving a speech which the establishment have quoted as being anti-Islamic,” she said. 

Fransen was arrested earlier this month over a speech made in Belfast this summer at a “Northern Ireland Against Terrorism” rally, according to the BBC.

Her comments come as Trump faces intense backlash from politicians on both sides of the pond over the videos. 

British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Thursday the U.K. is not afraid to push back on the U.S. in the wake of the retweets. 

“The fact that we work together does not mean that we’re afraid to say when we think the United States has got it wrong, and to be very clear with them. And I’m very clear that retweeting from Britain First was the wrong thing to do,” the prime minister said. 

In an interview on Thursday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) accused Trump of “racism.”

“The one thing I’ve learned after 42 trips to the region is that the antidote to terrorism is not racism and religious bigotry. When you embrace religious bigotry, when you say that all Muslims are the same, then you’re undercutting our effort to win the war,” Graham said on CNN.