Despite the strong and vocal reaction online, Trump has not retracted his statement.
"So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here - a lynching. But we will WIN!"
That was the
statement sent via tweet by President Donald Trump on Tuesday afternoon, and the immediate and intense reaction to his words hasn't softened his opinion in any way.
Picking up on the sudden spike in the usage of the word online, Dictionary.com took to Twitter to share the official definition of the word:
https://twitter.com/Dictionarycom/status/1186622144945577986?s=20
However, despite the reaction to his statement, President Trump has not yet retracted the use of the word, moving on to thank the Republican party for their continued support:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1186612453368651777?s=20
Yamiche Alcindor, the White House reporter for NBC News,
stated that "Lynching is trending so here are some facts: From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the U.S., according to the NAACP. Of these people that were lynched 3,446 were black."
Justin Sink, the White House Correspondent for Bloomberg,
tweeted that he asked Hogan Gidley, the Deputy Assistant to the President, why he would use that language, to which he replied: "The president has used many words, all types of language, to talk about the way the media has treated him. [...] The president wasn't trying to compare himself to the horrific history in this country at all".
