President Trump says Bubba Wallace should apologize, calls noose incident a ‘hoax’

President Trump said Monday on Twitter that NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace should apologize to those who stood beside him after his racing team discovered a noose in his garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway on June 21, describing the incident as a “hoax.” Trump added an assertion that the Wallace incident and NASCAR’s ban on the Confederate flag at its races have led to historically low television ratings for the stock-car circuit.

The tweet was the latest in a string of racially tinged overtures Trump has made to his political base as he runs for reelection amid a national reckoning prompted by the death in May of George Floyd, a black man, in Minneapolis police custody and the nationwide protests that followed. In recent weeks, Trump has threatened to veto a defense-spending bill if it includes a provision to rename bases honoring Confederate generals, promised lengthy prison sentences for those who damage federal monuments and stoked a cultural war in a pair of Independence Day speeches. Appearing before Mount Rushmore on Friday night, he pledged to “safeguard our values, traditions, customs and beliefs.”

After investigating, the FBI announced June 23 that no hate crime had been committedbecause the rope, which had been tied into a noose-like knot and used as a garage door pull, had been in that particular garage since October, when NASCAR previously raced at Talladega. Continue reading.