'Love wins:' Bubba Wallace responds after President Trump falsely accuses him of Talladega hoax

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Bubba Wallace issued a statement via Twitter on Monday afternoon, hours after President Donald Trump baselessly accused him of perpetrating a hoax at Talladega.

Wallace framed his statement as a message to younger generations. Wallace is 26. Trump is 74. Wallace, the only Black driver racing full-time in NASCAR, has been speaking out on racial inequality and social issues since the killing of George Floyd in May and became a target for baseless conspiracy theories in June after a noose was found in his garage at Talladega in June.

Trump latched onto the completely false conspiracy theory Monday morning. Monday afternoon, Wallace made a point to say that “love wins.”

“Your words and actions will always be held to a higher standard than others,” Wallace wrote. You have to be prepared for that. You don’t learn these things in school. You learn them from trials and tribulations, the ups and downs this crazy world provides. You will always have people testing you. Seeing if they can knock you off your pedestal. I encourage you to keep your head held high and walk proudly on the path you have chosen. Never let anybody tell you you can’t do something! God put us all here for a reason. Find that reason and be proud of it and work your tails off every day towards it! All the haters are doing is elevating your voice and platform to greater heights!”

“Last thing, always deal with the hate being thrown at you with love! Love over hate every day. Love should come naturally as people are taught to hate.”

“Even when it’s hate from the POTUS.”

“Love wins.”

Not long after Wallace posted his tweet he got support from LeBron James.

Wallace has become an inexplicable target for conspiracies after federal investigators said that the noose found in his team’s garage stall at Talladega was not a hate crime. Wallace was notified of the noose’s existence by NASCAR president Steve Phelps and never saw it in-person.

Two days after the FBI and a U.S. Attorney’s office said no hate crime charges would be filed because the noose had been there since October, NASCAR released a photo of the noose and said that the noose on the garage door of Wallace’s stall was the only noose knot in any of the nearly 1,700 garage stalls across 29 NASCAR tracks. Just 11 of those approximately 1,700 garage doors had knots of any kind in their ropes.

Wallace has said in multiple interviews that he agrees with the findings that the noose — which was real — was not formed in a hate crime towards him.

Press secretary’s explanation for tweet

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tried to explain Trump’s tweet in a briefing Monday afternoon. She said that Wallace needed to explain that federal investigators said it wasn’t a hate crime even though he’s said that multiple times already.

It was some mind-bending stuff.

McEnany was also asked if NASCAR should be commended for banning the Confederate flag from tracks. Trump also took issue with that June 10 decision in his tweet going after Wallace. McEnany said that Trump “takes great offense” to a characterization that Americans are “knee-jerk reaction summed up” as racist.

There was nothing in NASCAR’s statement about its Confederate flag ban that accused any of its fans of being racist.

“The presence of the Confederate flag at NASCAR events runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry,” NASCAR’s statement said. “Bringing people together around a love for racing and the community that it creates is what makes our fans and sport special. the display of the Confederate flag will be prohibited from all NASCAR events and properties.”

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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

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