Trump Rejects Ex-KKK Chief's Support Amid Row

Trump: I don't know what group you're talking about.

Jake Tapper gave Trump multiple opportunities to do so, but Trump could only respond by saying he didn't know anything about David Duke, who reportedly has endorsed him.

"As you know, I try to stay out of the day-to-day ups and downs of the primaries". At least, he knows about the white supremacist group when he has to deny allegations that his father was involved in it. "You wouldn't want me to condemn a group that I know nothing about". You have repeatedly disavowed him since then, but I'd like to go deeper than that.

After taking fire from all sides of the political spectrum for not condemning an endorsement from a white supremacist leader, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump blamed the incident on a "very bad earpiece" used in a cable news interview. "I mean, this is not exactly the people you want in your party".

"I don't know anything about David Duke". "I'm representing a lot of anger out there", he said on CNN.

"I think that you can conclude that by the strength of our primary numbers, that the wailing and gnashing of teeth may be an overestimate of what could happen. Would you just say, unequivocally, that you condemn them and you don't want their support?"

Tapper pushed back. Trump suggested Tapper send him a list of "the groups" and he could research them. And neither was the simple fact that Trump had earned the endorsement of a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan in the first place. But you may have groups in there that are totally fine and it would be very unfair.

The hosts also thanked Trump for providing the network with an hour of prime-time programming, and Trump joked, "I'm doing this because you get great ratings and a raise. I'd have to look", Trump said. When I do something on Twitter, everybody picks it up, goes all over the place, but when I did this one nobody ever picks it up.

The party's 2012 nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, has weighed in against Trump, speculating about a "bombshell" in the billionaire's tax returns.

Campaigning in Virginia, Rubio pounced on Trump's latest position on Duke, shifting to a more serious tone after spending the weekend mocking his rival's hair and "the worst spray tan in America". "It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep", Trump retweeted, without attributing the line to the dictator who allied with Nazi Germany in World War II.

Now before getting into the "endorsement", it's important to note that Duke's endorsement of Trump was not a formal endorsement. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas posted on Twitter: "Really sad".

"You're better than this", Cruz wrote.

As a conservative black Republican, Carson stood out in the mostly white Republican Party and his fast start in polls and fundraising a year ago briefly made him look like a contender.

Trump said he has brought out millions of new voters to the Republican Party and that he is the only GOP candidate who could beat the Democratic front-runner.

They were quickly surrounded afternoon by the counter-protesters who had heard about the planned anti-immigration protest and were waiting for them, the Associated Press reports.

On Friday, a man wearing a top saying "KKK endorses Trump" was thrown out of a rally for the Republican frontrunner in Oklahoma.

Edwards said in a statement Wednesday his show "promotes a proud, paleoconservative Christian worldview, and we reject media descriptions of our work as "white supremacist, ' 'pro-slavery" and other such scare words".