David Duke, the former Imperial Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan – a lifelong racist and a felon convicted of filing a false tax form and mail fraud — endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2016 and 2020.
In 2016, when Duke was running for the U.S. Senate as a Republican in Louisiana, he told NPR that his voters were the same people who would be voting for Trump in the presidential election.
“You think Trump voters are your voters?” Duke was asked.
“Well, of course they are!” Duke said. “Because I represent the ideas of preserving this country and the heritage of this country, and I think Trump represents that as well.”
There is, in fairness to Trump, a significant difference between Trump and Duke, an unrepentant racist who has made a series of a racist statements over the last several decades.
Trump doesn’t wear a hood and robe – at least not in public.
In 2021, Duke said in a podcast that Trump and Fox News host Tucker Carlson owed him the credit for taking the racist ideas that he disseminated during his many failed political campaigns – including the fraudulent “white replacement” theory – into the mainstream.
“Trump really knows what his movement is based on,” Duke said. “You know, [Trump] had to know that I ran my campaigns primarily on the immigration issue, on fair trade issues, on the issues of preserving American culture, on stopping the replacement of European Americans — which people are all talking about now.”
https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/david-duke-donald-trump-tucker-carlson-rcna3413
Trump, as is his way, did not share the credit for bringing his racist ideas to the mainstream.
He also didn’t acknowledge that he knew anything about Duke, who had endorsed his presidency.
Trump was asked if he would publicly reject the support of David Duke and said, “I just don’t know anything about him.”
Was Trump lying?
Is David Duke white?
Fact-Check.Org, the fact-checking site of the Poynter Institute news organization included a lengthy compilation of Trump’s references to David Duke. Trump did not necessarily praise Duke, but he definitely knew a lot about him.
https://www.factcheck.org/2016/03/trumps-david-duke-amnesia/
In addition, Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler compiled thirty years of Trump’s references to Duke.
Kessler’s column did not say that Trump and Duke were friends in the same way Trump was with Bill O’Reilly where they shared vanilla milkshakes.
SEE BILL O’REILLY,
But it did determine with certainty that Trump knew who Duke was, and if he didn’t share vanilla milkshakes with him, he shared the same racist beliefs.
Here’s Kessler’s column:
