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Trump claims he didn't know racist origin of his 'when the looting starts, the shooting starts' tweet (and WH retweet)

Donald Trump on Friday afternoon claimed to be completely ignorant of the racist history of the phrase ‘when the looting starts, the shooting starts,’ which he tweeted, and the White House retweeted, and which was also posted on the Presidential Facebook account.

The phrase was made famous by a Miami police chief in 1967.

Trump on Friday told reporters he believed the phrase means “when there’s looting, people get shot and they die.”

He says that’s very accurate and “we don’t want that to happen.”

“That’s the way that was meant, and that’s the way I think it was supposed to be meant, but I don’t know where it came from.”

Earlier on Friday, Twitter placed a warning on a tweet from Trump in which the noted racist blamed protests in Minneapolis on “THUGS” and said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

Facebook employees are upset that their company refuses to take action against Trump’s threat.

Twitter hides Trump tweet calling for “THUGS” to be shot

Here’s what Facebook employees are saying about Zuckerberg’s decision not to remove Trump’s threats of violence

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