The vice presidential candidate’s response came in an interview on The Situation Room.
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A new national poll shows Clinton leading Trump by four points.
Trump had expressed this view before. “Well, as I’ve told you the last time I was on, I’m not really sure why the media keeps dropping David Duke’s name”, a clearly miffed Pence said. “And I just don’t know anything about him”.
Trump’s campaign is focused on whipping up the resentments and insecurities of white people, so the easy out for his supporters-the thing they’re supposed to be hearing in this-is that he’s talking about someone else, someone with darker skin.
Morning Joe’s panel found itself in awe on Wednesday morning that vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence couldn’t bring himself to call David Duke “deplorable”. “I don’t-I’m not in the name-calling business, Wolf”. But all of the sudden that’s not enough for Wolf Blitzer and the Democrats because moving goalposts can not be fought with. Clinton, who was recently diagnosed with pneumonia, didn’t let her illness slow her down and immediately jumped on Pence’s response about Duke.
“How stupid is it, that you can’t say he’s deplorable?” said co-host Joe Scarborough. Apparently, Mike Pence is also not ready to dismiss the “uber racist” David Duke, presumably to give the “Alt-Right” faction of the Republican Party a “wink and a nod”. They’re trying to take the decency of Mike Pence and use it against him.
Not calling Duke deplorable?
A representative for Lee said in a statement, “Lee emphasized that Republicans must identify David Duke’s racism as deplorable, acknowledging that he ordinarily uses terms like “deplorable” to describe messages, ideas, actions, and organizations, but not people”. The Hillary Clinton campaign pounced on the refusal of Pence to label Duke.
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Blitzer pressed Pence. “So you’d call him a ‘deplorable’?”.
