Mike Pence Won’t Call David Duke ‘Deplorable’

A question about David Duke has stumped the Trump campaign yet again. Appearing Monday afternoon on CNN, Trump’s vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence refused to call the former Ku Klux Klan leader and other outspoken white supremacists “deplorable.” When asked by Wolf Blitzer about Hillary Clinton’s controversial remark that “you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the ‘basket of deplorables,’” the VP candidate became visibly irritated, replying, “I’m not really sure why the media keeps dropping David Duke’s name repeatedly. Donald Trump has denounced [him] repeatedly. We don’t want his support.” But when asked whether he would agree that Duke is “deplorable,” Pence demurred: “I’m not in the name-calling business.” Shortly thereafter, Clinton tweeted a response: “If you won’t say the KKK is deplorable, you have no business running the country.”