Former President Donald Trump railed against the 41-count indictment brought against him and 18 of his allies on Monday, posting on Truth Social that the Fulton County DA’s decision to charge him over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election was part of a “WITCH HUNT.”
But one post criticizing the indictment has caught the attention of Trump opponents, who expressed skepticism about the intent of his message.
On Tuesday morning, Trump wrote that he will present an “irrefutable” report about election fraud that he alleges took place in Georgia next Monday.
“Based on the results of this CONCLUSIVE Report, all charges should be dropped against me & others – There will be a complete EXONERATION,” Trump wrote. “They never went after those that Rigged the Election. They only went after those that fought to find the RIGGERS!”
After Trump’s post, “riggers” began trending on Twitter/X. Some alleged that that wasn’t what Trump meant and it was racist code—veering awfully close to a slur—while others cracked jokes about his usage of the word.
“He wrote ‘RIGGERS’ but [we] know what he really meant,” wrote film producer and former Clinton aide Keith Boykin.
“I can’t read ‘RIGGERS’ without immediately imagining Scooby-Doo in a Klan hood,” joked a second person.
One user surmised Trump would eventually have a Freudian slip if he continued calling people riggers.
A search of the term “riggers” on both Truth Social and an archive of Trump’s Twitter indicated that Tuesday was the first time he had used the word on social media.
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*First Published: Aug 15, 2023, 10:38 am CDT
Katherine Huggins
Katherine Huggins is a New York-based journalist and freelance contributor to the Daily Dot’s tech and politics section. She helps cover the United Nations for the Japanese newspaper Mainichi and previously reported on the 2022 midterm elections for Marketwatch. Her work has appeared in USA Today, Forbes, OpenSecrets and more.
