Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke says former President Donald Trump and Fox News host Tucker Carlson owe him credit after taking his racist ideas about “white replacement” to the mainstream.
In October, the liberal watchdog group Media Matters shared audio clips from Duke’s podcast (yes, even he has a podcast) in which the former KKK grand wizard boasted that his own failed political campaigns inspired ideas Trump championed during his presidency.
“Trump really knows what his movement is based on,” Duke said. “You know, [Trump] had to know that I ran my campaigns primarily on the immigration issue, on fair trade issues, on the issues of preserving American culture, on stopping the replacement of European Americans — which people are all talking about now.”
While in office, Trump did a lot to push the racist theories of “white replacement” and “white genocide,” which claim white people are being systemically erased by nonwhite babies born in or brought to the United States. For example, he tapped believers of the theory — such as Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller — to serve in his administration as advisers, and he once shared a tweet from an account referencing white genocide.
Duke just wants his props, that’s all.
In another segment of the episode, he wondered aloud how Carlson has become widely accepted by conservatives but he personally has not, despite the two men saying virtually the same things.
“How could it be that I’m an evil guy?” Duke asked.
Carlson has repeatedly used his show to stoke fear about immigrants and to suggest white people are being systematically replaced. Earlier this year, he claimed Democrats are “trying to replace the current electorate” in the U.S. with “new people, more obedient voters from the Third World.”
Duke doesn’t disagree with Trump’s or Carlson’s racist views of white replacement. For crying out loud, he just wants them to cite their sources.
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