Donald Trump On David Duke Endorsement: ‘I Disavow, OK?’

“David Duke endorsed me?” he asked. Trump has borrowed from the rhetoric former President Richard Nixon used during that time to appeal to working-class white voters, describing his campaign has a movement of the “silent majority”. “I know nothing about white supremacists”. So I don’t know. I don’t know. Did he endorse me? “Don’t tell me he doesn’t know who the Ku Klux Klan is”.

As several people swiftly pointed out on Twitter, Trump hasn’t always claimed ignorance of David Duke. I would have to look.

Buzzfeed News reported Sunday that Trump’s comments about not knowing Duke go against remarks he made in 2000, when he flirted with running for president on the Reform Party ticket. “The Reform Party now includes a Klansman, Mr. Duke, a neo-Nazi, Mr. Buchanan, and a communist, Ms. Fulani. This is not company I wish to keep”, Trump said in a statement reported then by The New York Times. “And I just don’t know anything about him”, Trump replied. During an August 2015 interview with Bloomberg News, the business mogul said that he did not want Duke’s endorsement, and that he disavowed him.

But it’s not the lie that came out of Trump’s mouth that’s so distressing; it’s how weak he sounded uttering the lie; how frightened he apparently is to lose any support, even support from a bigot like David Duke.

Trump has established himself as the front-runner after winning three of the four early voting contests.

Well, I have to look at the group. “Certainly I would disavow it if I thought there was something wrong”. I mean, I don’t know what group you’re talking about. On Sunday, he didn’t reference that statement – or indicate he’d ever heard of Duke’s support for him.

Asked to do that on CNN, Trump said he was “pretty sure” he’d never met Duke, a former state representative in Louisiana who has also campaigned for the U.S. Senate and various other public offices. “And I just don’t know anything about him”.

The row comes two days before more than 10 states – mostly in the south – vote on Super Tuesday. If he defeats Texas Sen. That’s led Rubio and Cruz, both first-term senators, to unleash a personal and policy-based barrage against Trump, warning his nomination would be catastrophic for the Republican Party in the November election and beyond. I know nothing about white supremacists.

“We can not be a party who refuses to condemn white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan“, Rubio told thousands of supporters gathered in Leesburg, Virginia.

He adds: “Not only is that wrong, it makes him unelectable”.

Duke, who was once a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, said America needed a leader who would dismantle what he called the “Jewish controlled” financial industry.

“The Ku Klux Klan?“. “[Donald Trump] you’re better than this”. For example, they could say: “I don’t agree with Mr. Trump on every issue – we differ on immigration, for instance – but he understands that people are fed up with politics as usual and want a change after eight destructive years of Barack Obama”.

Another rival, Ohio Governor John Kasich, tweeted: “Hate groups have no place in America”. We are stronger together.

Cruz deplored the “really sad” comments.

By mid-afternoon, Trump took to Twitter to share a video of a press conference held last Friday.

Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders also weighed in on the social media platform. Trump has referred to Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and has called for an all-out immigration ban on all Muslims. By not disavowing their racism and hatred, Trump gives them and their views a degree of legitimacy.

He said he has been audited “almost every year for 10 or 12 years”. Cruz cast Trump as a carbon copy Clinton and suggested that not even Trump “knows what he would do” as president. “Until the audit is completed, obviously I’m not giving my papers”.