Vox
By Matthew Yglesius
February 28, 2016
Appearing
this morning on Jake Tapper's State of the Union, Donald Trump was
asked to disavow support from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and
other white supremacists
and politely declined.
Trump,
being a cautious sort and not one to just talk without gathering all
the facts and giving a matter serious consideration, said he would have
to do more research
because at the moment he lacked sufficient information to disavow them.
The
question arose when Tapper asked Trump about the Anti-Defamation
League's request that he disavow Duke's endorsement and that of other
white supremacist groups.
Here's their exchange which you can watch here:
Trump:
I have to look at the group. I mean, I don't know what group you're
talking about. You wouldn't want me to condemn a group that I know
nothing about. I'd have to
look. If you would send me a list of the groups, I will do research on
them and certainly I would disavow if I thought there was something
wrong. You may have groups in there that are totally fine -- it would be
very unfair. So give me a list of the groups
and I'll let you know.
Tapper: Ok. I'm just talking about David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan here, but —
Trump:
Honestly, I don't know David Duke. I don't believe I've ever met him.
I'm pretty sure I didn't meet him. And I just don't know anything about
him.
This
is the kind of situation where Trump's lack of support from the broader
institutions of American conservatism is going to end up hurting him.
It's
not inconceivable to me that these remarks could be spun away as simply
a clumsy answer to a hostile and somewhat unfair line of questioning if
there were people
out there eager to do the spinning.
But
because most of the conservative movement has decided it doesn't like
Trump, conservative pundits are piling on with criticism of these
remarks. And that makes it
entirely kosher for "objective" journalists to report as a factual,
non-contested story that Donald Trump is endorsed by white supremacist
organizations who he has refused to disavow.
Here's the American Enterprise Institute's James Pethokoukis, for example.
And here's Republican media consultant Rick Wilson:
At
any rate, Trump has certainly said enough things that enough people
were sure would make his campaign implode that I am not offering any
predictions about the impact
of these remarks on the primaries on Super Tuesday. But it's certainly
an indication that he would be a toxic element in a general election.
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