Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I.) deleted a pair of tweets Monday that directly blamed President Donald Trump for the racist murder in Charlottesville, Va. on Sunday.
"Do I think the president bares [sic] some responsibility for what happened Charlottesville? Absolutely, yes," Sanders tweeted, along with a video of him saying the same to reporters in Vermont.
The former presidential candidate deleted that tweet and tried again: "Do I think the president bares [sic] some responsibility for conjuring the behavior of white supremacists in this country? Absolutely, yes."
Bernie Sanders for some reason went two iterations of this tweet before settling on the final one. https://t.co/mOHPkP8P9r pic.twitter.com/se2ZaoXGOx
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) August 14, 2017
But that tweet was also deleted, and replaced with the final, tamer version. "The message President Trump sent out to racists and Neo-Nazis all over the country this past weekend is this is okay," Sanders tweeted.
The message President Trump sent out to racists and Neo-Nazis all over the country this past weekend is this is okay. pic.twitter.com/k7o161yzuU
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 14, 2017
Sanders similarly blamed former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's (R.) rhetoric for the 2011 shooting of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. There is no evidence the shooter was inspired by or even liked Palin.
The senator ironically has his own problem with supporters perpetrating violence. Sanders' office had to issue an official statement distancing himself from a former campaign volunteer after the man attempted to murder Republican Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise in June.