Trump denounces White supremacy '38 times' in new campaign video, amid Biden-Harris criticisms
McEnany: Trump has denounced white supremacy, the KKK and hate groups
Fox News’ John Roberts reports from the White House on the media giving extremist group extra attention.
The Trump campaign on Tuesday released a video compiling more than three dozen times President Trump has denounced White supremacy, as his Democratic rival Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris of California continue to claim this week on the campaign trail that he has failed to do so.
The Trump campaign rolled out a nearly 5-minute-long video of the president, featuring video clips from as recently as this month, to his 2016 presidential campaign, and dating all the way back to an interview Trump gave to Matt Lauer in the early 2000s, where he denounced White supremacy and “disavowed” White supremacist groups.
The video comes after Biden and Harris have criticized Trump, casting him as a racist and claiming he has not denounced White supremacy, and also comes as part of the Trump campaign’s final pitch to win over Black voters ahead of Election Day.
“President Trump wants to prosecute the KKK as a terrorist organization and has condemned White supremacy at least 38 times. 38 times!” a senior Trump campaign official told Fox News.
TRUMP DENOUNCES WHITE SUPREMACY, SAYS HE WILL ACCEPT 'PEACEFUL TRANSFER OF POWER' BUT WANTS 'TO WIN'
“The Biden campaign continues to sow division and inflame racial tension by spreading this false narrative,” the Trump campaign official added. “Enough is enough.”
The official called it a “dead issue” and said that “anyone who continues to ask about it is using a question to disguise their accusations and smear the president.”
The president has been questioned on his stance toward White supuremacy since 2017, when he said that there were good people on “both sides” after violence broke out between White nationalists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va.
The issue came up again during the first presidential debate.
When asked, Trump responded: “Sure, I’m willing to do that, but I would say almost everything I see is from the left-wing, not the right-wing. I am willing to do anything. I want to see peace.”
The president’s response sparked an intense moment with the former vice president.
“Who do you want me to condemn?” Trump said. "What do you want to call them? Give me a name.”
Biden interrupted and said: "Proud Boys.”
“Proud Boys, stand back and stand by," Trump said. "But I’ll tell you what, I'll tell you what, somebody has got to do something about Antifa and the left. Because this is not a right-wing problem. This is a left-wing problem.”
The Proud Boys have been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and have held multiple events across the nation, alongside other right-wing groups. The gatherings have sparked some violent clashes with left-wing counter-demonstrators.
TRUMP CAMPAIGN SAYS PRESIDENT HAS 'CONTINUOUSLY DENOUNCED' WHITE SUPREMACY, AMID CRITICISM
Biden interrupted, calling Antifa “an idea, not an organization.”
Trump fired back saying, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.”
“When a bat hits you over the head, that's not an idea,” Trump said. “Antifa is bad.”
The president, during a town hall earlier this month hosted by NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie, was asked to clarify his remarks during the first presidential debate.
“I denounce White supremacy, okay,” Trump said. “I denounce White supremacy, I have, for years.”
Trump quipped: “You didn’t ask Joe Biden if he denounces Antifa.”
The president added: “I denounce White supremacy, and you want to know something, I denounce Antifa.”
However, they are not equivalent. Antifa, short for anti-fascist, is a small and loosely organized left-wing movement. According to the Anti-Defamation League, White supremacy is a full-fledged "ideology" that encompasses more than simple racism and bigotry.
The Trump campaign also pointed to the president’s plan for Black America, which designates the KKK and Antifa as terrorist organizations, and calls for making lynching a national hate crime.
“The person who needs to condemn White supremacy is Joe Biden, who praised a former KKK Exalter Cyclops as his ‘mentor’ and ‘friend,’” the Trump campaign said, referring to the former vice president’s relationship with late Sen. Robert Byrd, R-W.V..
Byrd was a former member of the Klu Klux Klan who later regretted that affiliation, renounced his past views supporting segregation and described it as a mistake. Byrd, who died at the age of 92 in 2010, was the longest-serving senator in American history. By the time of his death, he had allies even in the civil rights movement, with the NAACP at the time praising his legacy and his transformation from a former KKK member to a “stalwart supporter” of civil rights.
The Trump campaign also pointed to the former vice president’s running mate’s comments during the presidential primary, claiming Harris said Biden “coddled segregationists.”
But Biden campaign National Press Secretary Jamal Brown fired back, telling Fox News that “through his nearly four years in office, Donald Trump has only ever sought to divide us.”
“He had fanned the flames of hate and given comfort to those who spread it,” Brown told Fox News. “Vice President Biden today laid out a different vision for our future.”
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Brown was pointing to Biden’s remarks during a campaign event in Warm Springs, Ga. on Tuesday, where he sought to deliver a unifying message.
“God and history have called us to this moment and to this mission: with our voices and our votes, we must free ourselves from the forces of darkness, from the forces of division, and from the forces of yesterday — from the forces that pull us apart, hold us down, and hold us back,” Biden said Tuesday. “And if we do so, we will once more become one nation, under God, indivisible. A nation united. A nation strengthened. A nation healed.”
Biden, however, also repeated during his speech his claim that Trump had failed to denounce White supremacy.
"Donald Trump fails to condemn White supremacy, doesn’t believe that systemic racism is a problem, and won’t say that Black lives matter," Biden said.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has released a series of ads in an effort to win over Black voters, while attempting to cast Biden as having a “history of racist comments.” One ad, titled “Joe’s Own Words,” compiles several comments Biden has made, dating back to the 1970s.
Other ads the Trump campaign is sharing include ones focused on criminal justice reform and featuring Alice Johnson; one featuring Herschel Walker, who discusses what the president has done for the Black community; one claiming Biden is “all talk, no action,” one about a homeless veteran who received a second chance, and credits the president; and another featuring Duke Tanner, who received clemency from the president.
The ads will be cycled in and out of the YouTube masthead, which the Trump campaign has secured already 20 times throughout the 2020 cycle. The masthead, according to the campaign, reaches more than 74 million voters a day.
A senior Trump campaign official told Fox News that the masthead is a seven-figure buy, and described it as “the most valuable piece of real estate on the internet.”
The campaign has also secured the YouTube masthead for the final 72 hours before Election Day.