LEESBURG, Va.—Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is drawing criticism for refusing to denounce an implicit endorsement from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, with Marco Rubio using the matter to hammer the billionaire businessman ahead of the Super Tuesday primaries.
Trump was asked Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” whether he rejected support from the former KKK Grand Dragon and other white supremacists after Duke told his radio followers this week 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.”
The comments sparked a wave of censures with just two days to go before 11 states hold GOP primaries involving about a quarter of the party’s total nominating delegate count.
Trump was asked Friday by journalists how he felt about Duke’s support. He said he didn’t know anything about it and curtly said: “All right, I disavow, ok?”
Trump hasn’t always claimed ignorance on Duke’s history. In 2000, he wrote a New York Times op-ed 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.”
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