Senior Trump Aide Mercedes Schlapp Apologizes After Promoting Video of Chainsaw-Wielding Racist

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Mercedes Schlapp, a senior aide to President Donald Trump, apologized for retweeting a video of a man running at protesters with a chainsaw while screaming the n-word.

The video, posted on Friday, showed a man revving a chainsaw while running at Black Lives Matter protesters in Texas shouting, “Go home! Don’t let those f—–g n—— out there fool you!” Schlapp retweeted a post praising the man, which remained up until Saturday evening — after Politico reached out for comment on Saturday morning.

“I retweeted without watching the full video and I deeply apologize,” Schlapp told Fox News. “I deleted the tweet. I would never knowingly promote the use of that word. The intent was that these protestors wanted to call the cops for their own safety despite them wanting to defund the cops.”

Politico noted that after they had contacted Schlapp she retweeted another version of the video that muted the slurs, but she later removed both of her retweets after their story was published.

Schlapp is the wife to Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, the group that organizes the largest annual conservative gathering — the Conservative Political Action Conference. Before joining Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign she served as the White House Director of Strategic Communications.