President Trump is criticizing NASCAR for banning the Confederate flag at its races and is going after its only Black driver.
After a weekend spent stoking division, Trump wrongly accused Bubba Wallace of perpetrating “a hoax” after one of his crew members discovered a rope shaped like a noose in a garage stall.
Federal authorities ruled last month that the rope had been hanging there since at least last October and was not a hate crime.
Trump is asking whether Wallace has “apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid."
At a briefing on Monday, reporters repeatedly pressed White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany about President Trump's tweet about NASCAR and Bubba Wallace.
McEnany defended the president, arguing that he was calling out cancel culture and people rushing to judgment.
She added that President Trump "stands firmly on preserving our history."
"I think you're mischaracterizing the tweet. The tweet was aimed at pointing out the FBI report of the alleged hate crime at NASCAR concluded that the garage door pull - which had been there since last fall - was obviously not targeted at a specific individual."
She added, "The whole point of the tweet was to note the incident - the alleged hate crime, that in fact, was not a hate crime. At the very end, the ban on the flag was mentioned in the broader context of the fact that he rejects this notion that NASCAR men and women who go to these events are racist."
Wallace responded to the president's tweet with a tweet on his own. In it, he says in part, "All the haters are doing is elevating your voice and platform to much greater heights.
"Last thing, always deal with the hate being thrown at you with LOVE! Love over hate every day. Love should come naturally as people are TAUGHT to hate.
"Even when it's HATE from the POTUS.
"Love wins."
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(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
