President Trump chastised NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace weeks after a rope that resembled a noose was found in his car stall at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama.
“Has [Bubba Wallace] apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX? That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!” the president tweeted on Monday morning.
A noose-shaped pull-down rope was found in Wallace’s car stall last month, which prompted a federal law enforcement investigation to see whether a hate crime had been committed. But Wallace, NASCAR’s only black driver, “was not the target of a hate crime,” and the rope had been hanging in the stall as early as October, the FBI and the Justice Department said in a statement after completing an investigation.
ESPN reported that Wallace never saw the noose, but that one of his team members spotted it last week and quickly reported it to NASCAR. After insisting it was a “straight-up noose,” Wallace expressed relief that he was not the victim of a hate crime.
“It’s been an emotional few days,” Wallace said in a statement. “First off, I want to say how relieved I am that the investigation revealed that this wasn’t what we feared it was. I want to thank my team, NASCAR and the FBI for acting swiftly and treating this as a real threat. I think we’ll gladly take a little embarrassment over what the alternatives could have been.”
Wallace, the first black driver in the NASCAR Cup Series since 1971, pushed for the Confederate flag to be banned from the sport’s events. After facing mounting pressure, NASCAR said on June 10 it would ban the display of the Confederate flag at all of its events and properties.
Trump previously waded into a race-related controversy with the NFL. In the fall of 2017, he urged football team owners to fire players who kneel during the national anthem over the treatment of minorities.
