White supremacist David Duke told his listeners the day after the Nevada caucuses that it was a “historic day… maybe the day that turned the tide” not only for the the GOP nomination as “things are more and more encouraging that Donald Trump could be the president.”
The onetime grand wizard of Louisiana’s Ku Klux Klan — who served in Louisiana’s legislature and mounted unsuccessful campaigns for other offices including Congress and the governor’s mansion — lauded Trump’s front-runner status as the “most insurgent campaign in recent history.”
“He’s gotten the same kind of votes that I’ve gotten… he’s gotten the same kind of votes as George Wallace,” Duke said in the audio first reported by Buzzfeed.
“When he takes on immigration, the open borders, he’s really taking on the Jewish establishment.”
Railing against “Jewish control of America,” Duke said Trump “doesn’t take this on straight, anyway,” but “he definitely came out” on related issues such as fair trade and “stop the immigration.”
“I was the first Republican to make an issue against affirmative action… that was one of my planks and platforms. Donald Trump hasn’t taken that on straightforwardly, but he’s done it peripherally by showing that Black Lives Matter is really about racism against whites. That’s the message that he’s saying,” he added.
Voting for Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) or Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and “voting against Donald Trump at this point is really treason to your heritage,” Duke told his listeners. “Now, I’m not saying I endorse everything about Trump, in fact I haven’t formally endorsed him, but I do support his candidacy and I support voting for him as a strategic action. I hope he does everything we hope he will do.”
“I don’t know if he will or not, but we know his candidacy is an insurgency that is waking up millions of Americans and I’m telling you it’s your job now to get active. Get off your duff, get off your rear end that’s getting fatter and fatter for many of you every day … call Donald Trump’s headquarters, volunteer… you’re going to meet people there who have the same kind of mindset.”
Duke encouraged Trump volunteers to “educate” others, particularly telling evangelicals that supporting Jews is “absolutely like supporting the enemies of Jesus Christ.”
“Get active. Join this campaign,” he said, warning of an “alien race taking over” while “only Donald Trump has spoken up against Wall Street and the big Jewish banks like Goldman Sachs. He’s giving lip service to Israel, but Goldman Sachs is like saying Goldman Jews.”
Of the candidate on the trail who has been really going after Goldman Sachs, Duke said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is “nothing more than a Jewish extremist himself.”
He also advocated that young men join Trump’s campaign to meet women or join a Democrats’ group as a “manly male” to woo over members to supremacist ideology as an “infiltrator.”
“The Trump campaign is an amazing opportunity for us,” Duke said, stressing “how we can wrap up this nomination” and “build our movement” in the process.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters today that he hadn’t seen Duke’s comments and didn’t have an immediate reaction.
White nationalists have made robocalls for Trump in early states, saying that the calls were not authorized by the Trump campaign. The white supremacist American National Super PAC began a robocall campaign in Vermont and Minnesota this week telling voters, “Don’t vote for a Cuban. Vote for Donald Trump.”
Before the Iowa caucuses, some voters received a robocall stating, “We don’t need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump.”
Trump was asked about those calls on CNN last month.
“Nothing in this country shocks me,” he said after the Iowa call was played for him on-air. “I would disavow it, but nothing in this country shocks me. People are angry. They’re angry at what’s going on. They’re angry at the border. They’re angry at the crime. They’re angry at people coming in and shooting Kate in the back in California and San Francisco. They’re angry when Jamiel Shaw shot in the face by an illegal immigrant. They’re angry when the woman, the veteran, 65 years old is raped, sodomized, and killed by an illegal immigrant.”
“And, they’re very angry about it, and — by the way, thousands of other cases like that. They’re very angry about it. So, I would disavow that, but I will tell you people are extremely angry.”
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