GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump said Tuesday that he disavows all support from white supremacists, amid criticism that he didn’t sufficiently reject the backing of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke on Sunday.
“David Duke and all were disavowed,” Mr. Trump said on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” pointing out that he did so on Friday and on social media right after a Sunday morning interview on CNN where he said he didn’t know anything about Mr. Duke.
“Because I thought if there was any question — you take a look at Twitter, almost immediately after on Twitter and Facebook they were disavowed again,” he said. “I disavowed [them] every time I speak to somebody, virtually, and you know they just keep it going, they keep it going and they said, ’Oh, we never looked at your Twitter account; we never looked at Facebook.’ I said take a look at Facebook; it was totally disavowed.”
On NBC’s “Today” show Monday, Mr. Trump said he had a faulty earpiece for the CNN interview, that he thought he was getting asked about various groups and that he had already disavowed Mr. Duke.
Mr. Trump was asked Tuesday whether he was prepared to make a clear and unequivocal statement renouncing the support of all white supremacists.
“Of course, I am. Of course, I am,” he said. “I mean, there’s nobody that’s done so much for equality as I have. You take a look at Palm Beach, Florida — I built the Mar-a-Lago club — totally open to everybody. A club that, frankly, set a new standard in clubs and a new standard in Palm Beach.”
Mr. Trump’s rivals on the campaign trail have criticized him for not sufficiently renouncing Mr. Duke and the KKK, and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney tweeted Monday: “A disqualifying & disgusting response by @realDonaldTrump to the KKK. His coddling of repugnant bigotry is not in the character of America.”
“Well, first of all, Mitt Romney is a failed candidate — should have won the race and he failed miserably,” Mr. Trump said Tuesday. “He was a terrible candidate for the Republicans.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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