On Wednesday, former Vice President Joe Biden accused President Donald Trump of not denying the Ku Klux Klan. He had compared Trump’s rhetoric to the KKK on Monday after Trump again denounced white nationalism. Yet the president has denied and denounced the KKK and white supremacy at least seven times, as shown in a campaign video released Wednesday.
“Do you believe the president really supports the Ku Klux Klan?” a reporter asked Biden.
“He doesn’t deny them, at a minimum,” Biden said.
The Trump campaign video shows Trump — as a candidate, as a citizen, and as a president — explicitly disavowing the KKK and white supremacy.
“I totally disavow the Ku Klux Klan, I totally disavow David Duke,” he said in March 2016.
When asked about the Reform Party in 2000, then-private citizen Donald Trump said, “You’ve got David Duke just joined — a bigot, a racist, a problem.”
When asked in a March 2016 radio interview, “So are you prepared right now to make a clear and unequivocal statement renouncing the support of all white supremacists?” the then-candidate replied, “Of course I am, of course I am.”
“Who else do I have to reject?” he asked later that month. “I’ve rejected David Duke, I’ve rejected the KKK, the Ku Klux Klan.”
The campaign video then cut to a statement after the white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Va. After Trump made the remarks that there were “very fine people” on “both sides,” he immediately added that he wasn’t talking about “the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally.”
Later the same month, in August 2017, Trump added, “Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”
The video concluded with the president’s remarks on Monday. “In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy,” he said.
Biden launched his campaign attacking Trump’s “very fine people” remark, overlooking the president’s clear denunciation for white nationalists in that very statement.
What does Trump have to say for Biden to stop suggesting he’s a white nationalist in league with the KKK? Are seven denials somehow not enough? It seems Democrats will never give up the bone of Trump’s racism, “white nationalism,” or “white supremacy.” When The New York Times reported Trump’s denial of racism in a headline, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said America’s newspaper of record abetted white supremacy.
Watch the video below.
Joe Biden falsely claimed today that President Trump "doesn't deny" the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).
Here are 7 examples of President Trump condemning and rejecting the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists. pic.twitter.com/1PZnZpUT4o
— Trump War Room – Text WOKE to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) August 7, 2019
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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