President Trump is lashing out at NASCAR and Bubba Wallace, the series' only Black driver.
Trump in a tweet on Monday morning complained about NASCAR's "flag decision," referring to its announcement last month that it would ban display of the Confederate flag from all events, and claimed this contributed to NASCAR's "lowest ratings EVER." In fact, The Daily Beast's Lachlan Markay notes this was not the case with ratings for NASCAR's recent Xfinity race over the weekend.
Trump also demanded an apology from Bubba Wallace for an incident in June, when NASCAR said a noose was found in his garage stall. The FBI later said Wallace wasn't the target of a hate crime and that a "garage door pull rope fashioned like a noose" had been in that position since October.
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But while Trump called for Wallace to apologize for what he called "just another HOAX," USA Today notes Wallace himself "wasn’t even the person who found the noose." Instead, it was a crew member who did so. Wallace in a statement after the FBI's conclusion said he was "relieved" that "this wasn't what we feared it was."
Trump's tweet comes after he said he "won't even consider" renaming bases that are named after Confederate officers. With tweets like the one he sent off Monday morning, NBC News' Benjy Sarlin writes, "'I was going to vote for Joe Biden, but then I realized he's not for the Confederate flag' is a demographic that the president seems really convinced is real and in urgent need of political attention."
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