Donald Trump late Monday claimed no responsibility for sharing a graphic from a supporter on Twitter that included inaccurate crime statistics focused on racial groups.
{mosads}”Bill, I didn’t tweet, I retweeted somebody that was supposedly an expert,” the Republican presidential candidate told host Bill O’Reilly on his Fox News show.
“Am I going to check every statistic? I get millions and millions of people @realdonaldtrump,” Trump said. “All it was is a retweet. It wasn’t from me.”
The celebrity real estate tycoon, who has nearly 5 million Twitter followers, took heat for sharing the “USA crime statistics” graphic that included an image of a black man pointing a gun.
While some of the percentages included in the tweet apparently align with Department of Justice findings, stats including the highlighted “Whites Killed by Whites” were false, giving the perception the figure was far less than the ones for whites killed by blacks and blacks killed by blacks.
“You know I’m looking out for you, right?” O’Reilly said. “I’m looking out for you, I look out for every honest politician, I don’t care what party they’re in.”
But, O’Reilly continued, “Don’t do this, don’t put your name on stuff like this, because it makes the other side, it gives them stuff to tell the ill-informed voter that you’re a racist.”
“This was a retweet, this was a retweet,” Trump insisted, adding that the sources were “very credible.” He also said during the show, “I’m probably the least racist person on earth.”