As Breitbart reported, “Republican frontrunner Donald J. Trump declined to condemn white supremacist David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan on the Sunday broadcast of CNN’s State of the Union. Trump had done so already in August, as reported by Politico, and once again on Friday, as reported by The Hill.”
Despite Trump’s numerous repudiations since Sunday, Fox News is certain to attack Trump during tonight’s GOP debate over this isolated “insufficiently passionate” denial of Duke and the KKK. Megyn Kelly—who has personally taken a less than “fair and balanced” approach to Trump—is likely to be the chief interrogator.
One needs only to look to Kelly’s Monday interview of Governor Mike Huckabee to gauge her perspective. On the show, Kelly grilled Huckabee as he defended Trump, stating, “I don’t know of anyone who has suggested that Donald Trump is a racist.” Huckabee repeated that Trump is not a racist. The KKK? “Heavens no,” said Huckabee. “I don’t think anybody seriously is suggesting that he is giving a wink and a nod at the KKK.”
Huckabee said he believed Trump’s story that he couldn’t properly hear host Jake Tapper in his earpiece as the rationale for why he wouldn’t renounce the white supremacist terror organization. Still, Kelly wasn’t buying it. ” When did he repeatedly disavow the Klan? … Governor, you know what he heard,” said Kelly. “He repeated back ‘David Duke’ and ‘white supremacists’ right to Jake Tapper so you at least know he heard that.”
Given Kelly’s assumption of the worst of Trump, it is interesting to look back at one of her shows in December 2013 when she discussed a piece by Slate’s Aisha Harris about how the typical representation of Santa Claus as a white man had been confusing to her as a youth. At the beginning of the segment, Kelly stated:
When I saw this headline I kinda laughed and I said, ‘Oh, this is ridiculous. Yet another person claiming it’s racist to have a white Santa.’ And by the way, for all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white. But this person is maybe just arguing that we should also have a black Santa. But, you know, Santa is what he is, and just so you know, we’re just debating this because someone wrote about it, kids.
The claim against Trump is that he showed a lack of passion in his denouncement. Yet Kelly’s comments were not a denunciation but rather an affirmative statement. Within days, Kelly responded to the backlash against her white Santa comments by claiming it was a joke. “Humor is part of what we try to bring to this show,” said Kelly at the time. “But sometimes that’s lost on the humorless.”
Kelly went on to allege “the knee jerk instinct by so many to race bait and to assume the worst in people, especially people employed by the very powerful FOX News Channel… Contrary to what my critics have posited, neither my statement, nor Harris’, I’m sure, was motivated by any racial fear or loathing.” Too bad Kelly doesn’t give Donald Trump the same benefit of the doubt she extends to herself.
My prediction: during tonight’s GOP Fox News debate, the “pot calls the kettle white.”
Donald Trump and Oblimination – the complete reversal of President Obama’s (and Clinton’s) failed policies.
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