Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) trotted out a favorite GOP line Monday, wondering aloud on national TV why Donald Trump gets asked about the KKK but Hillary Clinton never gets asked about the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), who was a member of the KKK early in his career.
“Look, I know it’s an incredible overwhelming fascination — I’ve been watching this morning. But, look, let me ask you this, do you think Hillary Clinton is going to have to answer for her relationship with Sen. Robert Byrd who was an actual member of the KKK?” Huckabee asked on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “I’m not trying to defend…”
“You tried to do something, Mike,” Scarborough said in response. “This is pretty simple. Donald was asked two simple questions, and he didn’t answer them.”
Earlier in the interview, Huckabee condemned David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader.
“David Duke and the Ku klux Klan are absolutely abominable. I don’t think anybody that I know, anybody that I’ve ever known supports them,” Huckabee responded.
Scarborough also asked Huckabee whether he thought it was hard to condemn the KKK, referencing Trump dodging questions about Duke on Sunday.
“No, and I think he has said that. I listened to the clip on the ‘Today Show.’ I’ve read the things he said, and I looks to me that he totally disavowed the endorsement,” Huckabee replied. “Does anybody think Donald Trump is a racist? I don’t. I really don’t. I didn’t know of anything in his life that indicates that man has racist tendencies.”
Scarborough said that while Trump might not be a racist, he “may be playing to some people’s most base instincts.”
“I also think he’s misjudging people from our region of the country. Fair?” the “Morning Joe” co-host asked.
“I doubt he is as sensitive about just how deplorable David Duke is to many of us in the South. I think because I’m from the South I’m more sensitive and, frankly, more repulsed by racism than people maybe who didn’t grow up here,” Huckabee responded. “I saw the transition from the Jim Crow era in which I grew up to a time in which really race relationships, I believe, are not only dramatically better but I think in many cases better than they are in other parts of the country. And I think this continuing perception but that the south is still a hotbed of racism, Joe, that’s nonsense and you know that’s on sense.”
Scarborough agreed.
Watch the interview via MSNBC:
