President Donald Trump retweeted inflammatory anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant videos Wednesday originally shared by a far-right British political group.
Trump shared the three videos posted by Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of fringe group Britain First, which opposes multiculturalism and what it calls the “Islamization” of Britain.
The first video claimed to show Muslim migrant beating up a Dutch boy in crutches. The second was captioned “Muslim destroys a statute of Virgin Mary,” and the third read “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death!”
NBC News could not verify the claims of the group that the videos are what they purport to be.
Fransen thanked Trump for sharing the videos with his “44 MILLION FOLLOWERS!”
“GOD BLESS YOU TRUMP! GOD BLESS AMERICA!” she tweeted.
The husband of a British lawmaker who was killed by a far-right nationalist in 2016 slammed Trump for trying to legitimize the far-right in the U.K.
“Trump has legitimized the far right in his own country, now he’s trying to do it in ours,” tweeted Brendan Cox, whose wife Jo Cox was fatally shot and stabbed last year in her constituency by a man who witnesses said shouted “Britain First.”
“Spreading hatred has consequences and the president should be ashamed of himself,” Cox added.
Britain First — which has run candidates in local and national elections with little success, and campaigned against the construction and expansion of mosques — has denied involvement in the attack.
The group has a significant presence on social media with over 24,000 followers on Twitter and well over a million likes on Facebook. In past years it has staged a number of demonstrations around Britain which usually attract a few hundred protesters.
In September, the leaders of the organization, including Fransen, were charged with causing religiously aggravated harassment by disseminating leaflets and sharing online videos.