Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has a new supporter: former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke.
Duke, a self-described “racial realist” and notorious white nationalist, praised Trump during a wide-ranging tirade on his radio program, calling the surging real estate mogul a “good salesman” and “the best of the lot” of the large group of 2016 Republican presidential candidates.
“I praise the fact that he’s come out on the immigration issue. I’m beginning to get the idea that he’s a good salesman. That he’s an entrepreneur and he has a good sense of what people want to hear, what they want to buy,” Duke said. “He has really said some incredibly great things recently. So whatever his motivation, I don’t give a damn. I really like the fact that he’s speaking out on this greatest immediate threat to the American people.”
“He’s really going all out. He’s saying what no other Republicans have said, few conservatives say,” Duke, who served one term in the Louisiana House as a Democrat in the early 1990s, said in comments first unearthed by Buzzfeed. “And he’s also gone to a point where he says it’s not just illegal immigration, it’s legal immigration.”
“He’s certainly the best of the lot. And he’s certainly somebody that we should get behind in terms, you know, raising the image of this thing,” Duke said.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has attracted support from a wide array of factions within the Republican Party — including many affiliated with right-wing fringe groups — with his strongly worded positions and rants against immigrants.
Trump has also been vocal in condemning the governments of multiple foreign countries, including China, whose leaders he again took aim at Monday night.
During an interview on Fox News Channel’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” Trump blamed the Chinese government for a recent drop in stock markets across the globe and said President Xi Jinping did not deserve a lavish state dinner during his upcoming visit to the U.S.
“I’d get him a McDonald’s hamburger and I’d say we got to get down to work, because you can’t continue to devalue (the Chinese currency),” Trump said. “But I would give him a double, probably a double size Big Mac.”
Meanwhile, the bombastic billionaire resumed his activity on Twitter Tuesday — after a late-night social media rant against Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly — throwing insults at 2016 competitors Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham.
“Jeb Bush never uses his last name on advertising, signage, materials etc. Is he ashamed of the name BUSH? A pretty sad situation. Go Jeb,” Trump tweeted.
“Congrats @LindseyGrahamSC. You just got 4 points in your home state of SC-far better than zero nationally. You’re only 26 pts behind me,” he added later, citing a recent poll.
Graham, however, didn’t take kindly to the shoutout, telling CNN in an interview that he would inflict physical pain on the magnate if he visited his home-state.
“Come to South Carolina and I’ll beat his brains out,” Graham said.
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