Clinton ad ties Trump to KKK, white supremacists

A video released Thursday by Hillary Clinton’s campaign makes the case that Donald Trump is the candidate of racists, white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

“The reason a lot of Klan members like Donald Trump is because a lot of what he believes, we believe in,” a robed man identified as the Imperial Wizard of the Rebel Brigade Knights of the Ku Klux Klan says at the top of the video, followed by images of a Confederate flag fluttering in the wind, Trump waving after a speech, and a man performing a Hitler salute at what appears to be a Trump rally.


The video’s release comes on the same day that Clinton is scheduled to deliver a speech on the so-called “alt-right” political movement, which has formed much of Trump’s base from the beginning of his campaign. In the video, an unidentified voice labels the alt-right as “the sort of dressed-up-in-suits version of the neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements.”

The video specifically attacks newly hired Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon over his previous job running Breitbart News, widely considered to be the most prominent alt-right media outlet. An unnamed member of a CNN panel attacks Bannon as “a campaign chair that ran a website that has become a field day for the alt-right, which is racist and all sorts of other ‘ists.’”

Trump's campaign quickly issued a statement in response to the video from Mark Burns, a pastor with close ties to the campaign who spoke at the Republican National Convention last month in Cleveland. Burns said the video represented a "disgusting new low" for Clinton and her campaign.

"Hillary Clinton and her campaign went to a disgusting new low today as they released a video tying the Trump Campaign with horrific racial images," Burns said in the statement emailed out by the Trump campaign. "This type of rhetoric and repulsive advertising is revolting and completely beyond the pale. I call on Hillary Clinton to disavow this video and her campaign for this sickening act that has no place in our world."

Former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, whose endorsement Trump famously did not immediately refuse when asked about it during a CNN interview, as well as Jared Taylor, the editor and founder of the white-supremacist magazine “American Renaissance,” are also quoted praising Trump in the video. The same robed Klan member remarks, “Donald Trump would be best for the job.”

“Sending out all the illegals, building a wall, add a moratorium on Islamic immigration,” Taylor said in an interview pulled from CNN. “That’s very appealing to a lot of ordinary white people.”

After controversy exploded in the wake of his initial refusal to repudiate Duke, Trump told Bloomberg in an interview that “I don’t need his endorsement; I certainly wouldn’t want his endorsement.”

The video runs just over a minute and 10 seconds and wraps with a black and white image of the White House as audio from a Trump rally of attendees chanting the real estate mogul’s name plays. The Clinton campaign video closes with a warning that “If Trump wins, they could be running the country.”

At a rally in New Hampshire Thursday afternoon, Trump called Clinton's accusations of racism "the oldest play in the Democratic playbook."

"Now, I've not seen what Hillary is going to say, but I've heard about it. And, in a sense, I don’t want to dignify her statements by dwelling on them too much, but a response is required for the sake of all decent voters that she is trying to smear," Trump said. "When Democratic policies fail, they are left with only this one tired argument. 'You're racist, you're racist, you're racist,' they keep saying it, 'you're racist.' It's a tired, disgusting argument, and it's so totally predictable. They're failing so badly. It’s the last refuge of the discredited Democrat politician. They keep going back to the same well, but you know what? The people are becoming very smart. They've heard it too many times before. The well is dry."

