Donald Trump endorsed by former Ku Klux Klan head

Presidential hopeful refuses to condemn supremacist’s backing

Tue, 01 Mar, 2016 - 00:00

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump has been attacked by his party rivals for refusing to condemn an implicit endorsement from a white supremacist leader.

Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio used the issue to savage the billionaire before today’s Super Tuesday multiple state primaries could put him on an irreversible path to the party’s nomination.

Trump was asked on CNN whether he rejected support from David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon, and other white supremacists after Duke told his radio followers that a vote against Trump was equivalent to “treason to your heritage”.

“Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke. OK?” Trump told host Jake Tapper.

“I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists.”

Trump was asked by journalists how he felt about Duke’s support. He said he did not know anything about it, adding curtly: “All right, I disavow, OK?”

A former host of the television show The Apprentice, Trump has not always claimed ignorance about Duke’s history.

In 2000, he wrote a New York Times opinion piece explaining why he abandoned the possibility of running for president on the Reform Party ticket.

He wrote of an “underside” and “fringe element” of the party, concluding: “I leave the Reform Party to David Duke, Pat Buchanan, and Lenora Fulani. That is not company I wish to keep.”

His comments sparked a wave of censures just ahead of Super Tuesday when 11 states hold Republican primaries.

At stake are 595 delegates to the party’s national convention this summer, with 1,237 needed to win the nomination.

On the Democratic side, 865 delegates are up for grabs in Super Tuesday contests in 11 states and American Samoa. It takes 2,383 delegates to gain the Democratic nomination.

Hillary Clinton, who received another burst of momentum on Saturday after a lopsided victory in South Carolina, turned her attention to the Republican field, all-but-ignoring rival Bernie Sanders during campaign events in Tennessee.

Clinton described Duke’s support for Trump as “pathetic”.

Clinton’s South Carolina victory was fuelled by an 84-16 advantage among African-Americans, a key Democratic constituency that will also play a dominant role in several Super Tuesday states in the South.

Sanders acknowledged being “decimated” in South Carolina, though he promised to continue his campaign against what he describes as a political and economic oligarchy.

He avoided mentioning his huge South Carolina loss at a rally before more than 6,000 cheering people at an Oklahoma City convention centre.