Welcome to 2016, when the Republican party has finally decided to trade in its dogwhistles for megaphones. That includes South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, who says that even if Donald Trump meant it when he said he would not disavow David Duke (and didn’t try to walk that comment back later), he'd still be a better choice than a Democrat.
Here's part of the exchange between Huffington Post's Ryan Grim and Rounds, when Grim is asking him about Rounds’ earlier comments that Trump would be great for general election turnout. He followed up to see what Rounds might have to say about that whole racism thing:
"It's unfortunate that it happened," he [Rounds] went on. "You know, the only part I saw the other day is where he said he was disavowing it. I understand that some other people said he didn't do it loud enough or whatever."
"No," I [Grim] said. "Jake Tapper said to him 'I'm talking about David Duke and the KKK,' and he said 'Ku Klux Klan,' just in case he didn't know what KKK stood for. And Trump responded, 'I have to look into these groups... I don't know David Duke.'" […]
"Even if you're disappointed with the way he's responding to things," [Rounds responded] "even if you're mad at him, you disagree with him, if he did it intentionally—don't think he did, I think he just made a mistake—even if he did, they're still going to do a better job with him there than if you had Hillary or Bernie in his place.”
Enough said.
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