Barack Obama just made Twitter history.

The former president tweeted a Nelson Mandela quote on the day of violent chaos in Charlottesville. He included a photo taken of him in 2011 on a visit to his daughter Sasha’s school in Bethesda, Md.

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion..." pic.twitter.com/InZ58zkoAm — Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017

With more than 2.8 million likes already, it’s the most “liked” tweet in Twitter history. A spokesperson for Twitter said the tweet broke the record just after 7 p.m. Pacific on Tuesday.


That was hours after President Trump, who succeeded Obama in the White House, drew new criticism for his most recent remarks about the clash between white supremacists and counter-protesters.

Trump told a room of journalists gathered at Trump Tower in New York that “both sides” were to blame that day. His off-the-cuff remarks were a whiplash back to his first comments and came a day after he read a prepared response saying “racism is evil” and condemning neo-Nazis and the KKK.

Timeline: Trump’s shifting statements on Charlottesville »

Trump, as he often does, has had a lot to say in Twitter over the last few days. On Saturday, he tweeted generally about condemning hate but did not call out any groups specifically. On Monday, after the scripted event specifically calling out white supremacists, he complained about the media not being satisfied.


Made additional remarks on Charlottesville and realize once again that the #Fake News Media will never be satisfied...truly bad people! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017

Late Monday, he retweeted a post from an alt-right media figure who pushed the PizzaGate and Seth Rich conspiracy theories. This post asked why there was no media outrage about violence in Chicago. Early Tuesday morning, Trump retweeted — and then deleted — a photo of a train running down a person with a CNN logo over their face. He also retweeted a person calling him a fascist, which was likely accidental and was also later removed.

Follow me on Twitter @jessica_roy.

jessica.roy@latimes.com


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