Donald Trump retweets a man calling him a fascist

Donald Trump appeared to confirm that he intends to pardon the former Arizona sheriff who was found guilty of criminal contempt for defying an order from a state judge to stop traffic patrols targeting suspected undocumented immigrants.

Fox News first reported that Trump was considering an official pardon after a conversation with the president on Sunday 13 August, in which he said: "I am seriously considering a pardon for Sheriff Arpaio.

"He has done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration. He's a great American patriot and I hate to see what has happened to him."

Trump corroborated this conversation by retweeting the Fox News story earlier today, but then bizarrely retweeted a man called Mike Holden who had replied to Trump's Fox News retweet: "He's a fascist, so not unusual."

Many took to Twitter to question why the president retweeted such a negative comment. It also isn't known if the initial statement from Holden was aimed at Arpaio or Trump.

Carlton Cole said: "Why did the president of the USA RT a tweet calling himself a fascist? Mate, run for your life, the FBI will catch you." Anne Theriault said: "You know the president is off his rocker when he retweets that he's a fascist."

About 10 minutes after making the retweet, the president appeared to realise his mistake and deleted the tweet. Trump then deleted another retweet which showed a person with the CNN logo superimposed over them being hit by a Trump train.

Some pointed out that this could be perceived as inciting violence and it comes just days after a woman was hit by a car and killed by an alt-right protester in Charlottesville.

He made both retweets at the same time and and both were taken down within 15 minutes, but not before they had attracted hundreds of replies and retweets.