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Trump only agreed to delete his 'white power' tweet after the GOP's sole Black senator called the video 'indefensible'

Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black GOP senator, helped convince President Donald Trump to delete a tweet in which a supporter of his chanted "white power."

Tim Scott
  • Scott called the video, which showed members of a retirement community in Florida arguing about the president, "indefensible."
  • It took Trump about three hours to delete the offensive post.
  • The White House insisted that the president watched the video before he shared it with his more than 82 million followers, but that he didn't hear the racist phrase.
  • Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories .
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It took President Donald Trump several hours to agree to delete his Sunday morning tweet featuring a video in which a supporter of his chanted "white power."

The president only decided to take down his offensive message, in which he praised his supporters in the video, after the Republican Party's sole Black senator, Tim Scott, publicly called the tweet "indefensible," The Washington Post reported Tuesday .

"There's no question. He should not have retweeted it and he should just take it down," Scott told CNN in an interview on Sunday morning. "If you watch the entire video you can't play it because it was so profanity laced. The entire thing was offensive. Certainly, the comment about the white power was offensive."

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Scott added, "We can play politics with it or we can't. I'm not going to. I think it's indefensible, we should take it down. That's what I think."

In another Sunday interview, Scott told CBS News the video of Trump's supporters and and opponents arguing in a Florida retirement community was "terrible."

Trump was golfing for several hours at his club in Virginia on Sunday while his aides attempted to get in touch with him and his aide Dan Scavino to discuss deleting the video, NBC News reported Monday .

The president's tweet was removed at around 11 am on Sunday about three hours after he posted it.

Judd Deere, a White House spokesperson, said Trump had not heard the man yelling "white power" before he shared the video with his more than 82 million followers. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany later confirmed that the president watched the video before he tweeted it, but claimed he didn't hear the chant, which a man yelled twice before another man repeated it.

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Neither the White House nor the president apologized for sharing the video or condemned its contents.

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