HuffPost

PROUD BOYS CELEBRATE TRUMP’S CALL FOR THE HATE GROUP TO ‘STAND BY’. Members of the violent hate group known as the Proud Boys celebrated after a callout from President Donald Trump in Tuesday’s presidential debate.

Trump told the far-right gang to “stand by” during an exchange in which moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News asked Trump if he was willing to condemn “white supremacists and militia groups.” Trump was not. “Sure, I’m willing to do that,” Trump said, “but I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing.”

After a back-and-forth in which both Wallace and Democratic nominee Joe Biden pressed Trump to condemn white supremacy, the president instead emboldened an extremist group that often engages in acts of violence.

“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by,” Trump said before abandoning Wallace’s question entirely to instead blame anti-fascists for violence. On the Proud Boys’ account on the messaging app Telegram, members of the group celebrated the apparent endorsement.

“Standing down and standing by sir,” the account wrote. One of the Proud Boys’ leaders, Joe Biggs, took the president’s endorsement as a call to violence. “Trump basically said to go fuck them up,” Biggs said in a chat on the right-wing social media app Parler. “This makes me so happy.”