RIGHT wing extremist, the kkk, skinheads, sexist, racist, xenophobes, homophobes, liars, anti-semititic, islamaphobic and the neo-nazis, all drumpf/trump pence supporters, are deplorable and there is no apology necessary for saying so. Maybe if the media wasn't afraid of challenging the drumpf/trump campaign on just who is supporting them and why, and if they weren't afraid to question drumpf/trump-pence about the vile lies, hate, deception and propaganda their campaign spouts Hillary Clinton's comments wouldn't be controversial. If the republican leadership had challenged drumpf/trump at the beginning of the primary season they might have ended up with a nominee they don't have to be ashamed of. Rushing to defend drumpf's/trump's pence's supporters who are deplorable shows the rest of America just who is important to the republican party. From the +Washington Post & +POLITICO .....
Mike Pence refuses to call David Duke ‘deplorable’
Republican vice President candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, right, accompanied by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Wash., left, and House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis., speaks during a news conference the Republican National Headquarters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2016,following a meeting. (Cliff Owen/Associated Press)
Pence was asked at a news conference with House Republican leaders in Washington whether he wanted to amend comments he made on CNN the previous day. In the interview, he denounced support from Duke, but declined to say whether the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan can be considered part of the “basket of deplorables” — the phrase Hillary Clinton used to describe half of Trump’s supporters last week.
“The simple fact is I’m not in the name calling business,” Pence said Tuesday. “But I’m also not going to validate the language Hillary Clinton used to describe the American people.”
Clinton weighed in on Twitter on Monday, saying, “If you won’t say the KKK is deplorable, you have no business running the country.”
Pence, the governor of Indiana, said on Twitter Monday night that his comments about Duke, in a pair of interviews on CNN and Fox News, were being taken out of context. And on Tuesday, when he gathered with House Republican leaders, Pence again expressed frustration with being asked about Duke for a second day.
“For all the world, I have no idea why this man keeps coming up,” he said, calling Duke a “bad man,” and saying that the issue has served as a mere distraction.
“Donald Trump and I have denounced David Duke repeatedly,” he added. “We have said we do not want his support and we do not want the support of people who think like him.”
A spokesman for Duke, who is running for Louisiana’s U.S. Senate seat, had no immediate comment Tuesday. But Duke told BuzzFeed News on Monday that he was pleased that Pence declined to call him “deplorable.”
“It’s good to see an individual like Pence and others start to reject this absolute controlled media,” Duke told BuzzFeed News. “The truth is the Republican Party is big tent. I served in the Republican caucus. I was in the Republican caucus in the legislature. I had a perfect Republican voting record. It’s ridiculous that they attack me because of my involvement in that nonviolent Klan four decades ago.”
Pence tried to keep the focus on Clinton’s original comments from an LGBT fundraiser Friday night, where she said half of Trump’s supporters were “deplorables.” She has said she regrets using the term “half” to describe the proportion of Trump supporters she considers “deplorables,” but she didn’t back down from describing his campaign as largely built on prejudice and paranoia.
“What Hillary Clinton apparently doesn’t know is the people supporting this campaign are hard-working Americans,” Pence said, adding that millions are “shocked and saddened” by her remarks.
Pence, a 12 year veteran of the House, made the rounds Tuesday in Washington, meeting privately with House and Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill. One of those meetings was with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who Pence had endorsed prior to Indiana’s primary. Cruz, who dropped out of the race after losing Indiana, has refused to endorse Trump.
Cruz left the meeting without answering questions about whether he would endorse, or even vote, for Trump. But he praised Pence as “a good man, a friend” and “a strong conservative.”
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker heaped praise on Pence as well, saying he gave out his cellphone to senators and encouraged them to call him. Corker said senators had “constructive suggestions” for the Trump-Pence ticket, including to “articulate fully as to what they envision the country to be” and what issues the nation is facing.
Corker said everyone was impressed with how Pence conducted himself.
“I doubt you could have a better spokesman for someone than Mike Pence,” Corker said.
Pence left the meeting without commenting. One of Trump’s harshest Republican critics, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, also did not answer questions about how the meeting went.
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Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this report. Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sbauerAP and find more of his work at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/scott-bauer
Mark Foley called Trump "one of [his] biggest contributors" after a Florida rally Wednesday. | AP Photo
Two days after a terrorist’s father was spotted behind Hillary Clinton at a Florida speech, Donald Trump appeared in the Sunshine State and criticized her for the bad optics.
But there was one big irony that undermined Trump's message: Disgraced former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley — accused in 2006 of making sexual advances toward congressional pages — was sitting behind Trump the entire time Wednesday in Sunrise, near Fort Lauderdale.
Democrats pounced and demanded the news media highlight Foley just as reporters had pressed Clinton for an explanation as to how the father of Omar Mateen wound up in the crowd behind her as the cameras rolled.
"A certain campaign made a big deal about how campaigns must vet everyone who attends events. And then let in an alleged pedophile. Sad!" Eric Jotkoff, a Florida Democratic consultant tweeted, mocking Trump’s style of social media posts.
Trump’s criticisms of Clinton on Wednesday couldn’t have been better scripted by the Clinton campaign, which spent a day ducking questions about Mateen’s father before she disavowed him. Seddique Mateen, whose son gunned down 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in June, told a reporter at Monday's event in Kissimmee that he supported Clinton.
At his rally Wednesday, Trump drew attention to the crowd behind him by saying, “The people behind me. They're all on television. They're going to be famous … Wasn't it terrible when the father of the animal that killed the wonderful people in Orlando was sitting with a big smile on his face right behind Hillary Clinton?"
As he spoke, Trump slightly turned and pointed in the general direction of Foley, who was sitting in almost the same spot relative to Trump that Seddique Mateen occupied during Clinton’s speech.
“How many of you people know me? A lot of you people know me,” Trump said as a number of hands went up, including Foley’s.
MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts caught up with Foley after the event and asked him if he planned to vote for Trump, whose Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach bordered Foley’s old West Palm Beach-based congressional district.
“Yes,” Foley told Roberts. “He’s been a friend of mine for 30 years and [was] one of my biggest contributors.”
Foley, 61, resigned from Congress on Sept. 29, 2006. The Republican was found to have had a history of sending sexually explicit messages to male pages, including some under the age of 18. On Oct. 2, 2006, Foley checked into a rehabilitation facility for alcoholism; his lawyer subsequently stated Foley was molested as a youth by a clergyman.
David Cohen contributed to this report.
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