David Duke threatens run against Steve Scalise: ‘He sold out’

David Duke, the former head of the Ku Klux Klan, said he is mulling a run for House Majority Whip Steve Scalise’s congressional seat, calling the Louisiana Republican a sellout for sending out a public mea culpa for his 2002 speech at the European-American Unity and Rights Organization.

“I might just have to run against Steve Scalise,” Mr. Duke said in an interview with “The Jim Engster Show” reported initially by BuzzFeed. “I really might. I’m definitely going to consider it.”

Mr. Duke also called for Mr. Scalise to resign.

“He should resign because the difference between Steve Scalise and I is that he campaigned on the same issues that I introduced to the Republican Party, but he sold out,” Mr. Duke said, The Hill reported.

Mr. Scalise, facing widespread criticism, apologized a few weeks ago for his address to the group — which is tied to Mr. Duke — and called it a “mistake I regret,” he said, The Hill reported. But Mr. Duke said that apology never should have been made.

“That wasn’t a Klan meeting. It wasn’t any sort of a radical meeting,” Mr. Duke said, The Hill reported. “It was a meeting that said there’s European-American rights, right? … What he’s basically saying [with his apology] is 60 percent of his district, the same people, by the way, who voted for him, that they’re just nothing but a bunch of racists.”