No "self-respecting African American" could support Trump amid the atmosphere he has fostered and tolerated, Clyburn said.

"Donald Trump cannot unring the bell," added Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), who accused Trump of stoking racist anger at Hispanic immigrants.

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"Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell can't unring the bell, but they can denounce," Trump and renounce him as the nominee, Becerra said.

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Although both Republicans have been critical of Trump in the past and have urged him to moderate some of his rhetoric, both endorsed the business executive before he formally claimed the nomination in July.

Clyburn, whose district includes the Charleston church where a white man is accused of killing nine black parishioners at a Bible study last year, said Trump is appealing to the same dangerous current of hate that allegedly inspired the gunman.

"We are very concerned this kind of rhetoric can feed on the discontent that people are feeling, as well as the anxiety, and have dire consequences," Clyburn said, adding that Trump is knowingly and deliberately fanning that flame.

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He castigated Trump supporter Rev. Mark Burns, a black evangelical pastor who is also from South Carolina, for sending what Burns called a satirical Twitter message Monday featuring a cartoon drawing of Democrat Hillary Clinton in blackface.

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"I ain't no ways tired of pandering to African Americans" the caption read.

Burns later apologized and removed the image, which Clyburn scoffed is insufficient.

"You don't erase the effect you have," on those receptive to hate messages, Clyburn said.

Rep. Nita M. Lowey (D-N.Y.) said rejecting Trump should be a patriotic imperative for Republican leaders.

"No matter what political party you identify with, as human beings we find common ground," in turning away from what she called incitement.

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Clyburn is a powerful and long-serving black politician whose support Clinton cultivated carefully this year after testy relations during her unsuccessful 2008 campaign. He endorsed her shortly before the South Carolina primary in February, amid a surge in support for her Democratic primary challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.).

A young black activist disrupted a private Clinton fundraising event in South Carolina earlier this year, demanding to know why Clinton had called black criminal suspects "super-predators" and supported the 1994 crime bill as first lady. She has since reversed support for parts of that bill that led to wide disparities in prison sentences for black and white drug convicts.

"Hillary Clinton has sufficiently explained her rhetoric in the past. I do not hold against her the rhetoric she used — the 'super-predator' term," Clyburn said. "She wasn't talking about all African Americans; she was talking about a certain situation."

The term is applicable in some cases. Clyburn said, citing the shooting death last week of a cousin of Chicago Bulls star Dwyane Wade. Two brothers, parolees with long criminal histories, were arrested.