DOUBLING DOWN

Trump: Hillary Meme Should Still Be Up

An image that was shared on an anti-Semitic forum.

During a campaign speech in Cincinnati, Donald Trump said the anti-Semitic Hillary Clinton meme he tweeted over the weekend should never have been taken down. “We shouldn’t have taken it down,” Trump bellowed. This comes after his social-media manager Dan Scavino released a statement explaining what happened with the image, which was removed and edited so that the star was covered with a circle. “It was lifted from an anti-Hillary Twitter user where countless images appear,” Scavino explained Monday. “The sheriff’s badge—which is available under Microsoft’s ‘shapes’—fit with the theme of corrupt Hillary and that is why I selected it,” he added. In his rally Wednesday night, Trump said the new media is responsible for “racial profiling,” not his campaign, despite the fact that the image was created by a user who frequently tweeted racist imagery and found its way onto an anti-Semitic 8chan thread. “When they told me the Star of David, I said you’ve got to be kidding,” Trump said. “How sick are they? Actually they’re the ones with bad tendencies when they can think that way. And they said, remember what they said, but there’s money around the stars and therefore you know what that represents.” Trump also reiterated that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was “bad” but effective at killing terrorists despite being classified as a state sponsor of terrorism. — Gideon Resnick

See more of our coverage in your search results.

ADD THE DAILY BEAST ON GOOGLE

Gideon ResnickPolitical Reporter

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.