David Duke: "Jewish tribal nature" is behind Trump opposition
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke is once again interjecting himself into Donald Trump's campaign amid an onslaught of criticism over the candidate's treatment of the judge presiding over a class action lawsuit against Trump University.
Trump, according to Duke, is actually in the crosshairs of a much more powerful faction in the United States: Jews.
"The Jewish establishment is absolutely zeroing in now on Donald Trump," Duke said on his radio show on Tuesday. "The viciousness of these Jews is unbelievable."
"I think this whole Trump University case really, if we exploit it, can really expose the entire Jewish manipulation of the American media the American political process, the American control of politics in America, and truly how that they are the dominant and dangerous power that exists in the United States of America today," he said.
It's not the first time Duke has been intertwined with the Trump campaign. In February, the former KKK grand wizard rallied supporters around Trump, saying a ballot cast against Trump would be "treason to your heritage" and calling the Trump movement an "insurgency that is waking up millions of Americans."
That month, Trump was asked in a CNN interview whether he was willing to unequivocally condemn the white supremacist group and its former leader. He dodged the question.
"I don't know anything about David Duke, okay? I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists," Trump told CNN's Jake Tapper. He eventually distanced himself from Duke, saying "hate groups are not for me."
On his radio show on Tuesday, Duke specifically attacked the law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, which filed the nationwide class action lawsuit against Trump University in 2010 on behalf of customers who, it says, "were duped" by the institution.
"The lawsuit was launched by an overwhelmingly Jewish firm. The main players of this Jewish firm are Geller and Rudman," Duke said.
Duke went on to say that the media is especially eager to take down Trump due to the presence of Jewish journalists and executives in the industry. He called out specific reporters: CNN's Tapper, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer ("a Jewish agent"), CNN president Jeff Zucker ("a Jewish extremist") and "the shabbat goy shiksa Megyn Kelly, 'cause they love to have some gentiles doing it. They don't want Jews always out front," he said.
The opposition to Trump is "very illustrative of the Jewish tribal nature," Duke said. "They're like a pack of wild dogs."
Duke called Judge Curiel's record "absolutely partisan," referencing Curiel's membership in the Hispanic National Bar Association.
"You couldn't even imagine any candidate being a member of the European American National Bar Association. In fact, there isn't one. That wouldn't even be allowed," he said.
On the campaign trail, Trump has consistently brought up Judge Gonzalo Curiel's Mexican heritage to suggest bias in his handling of the Trump University lawsuit. The federal judge was nominated by President Obama in 2011 to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. He was born in South Chicago, Indiana to Mexican immigrant parents. On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton called those comments a "racist attack."
David Duke is not the only white supremacist who's been linked to the Trump campaign. Last month, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's team included a prominent white nationalist in its list of 169 delegates from California. The campaign later blamed a "database error" for the inclusion.