Donald Trump’s erratic and angry performance in Tuesday’s presidential debate has prompted many republicans inside and outside the Beltway to try to distance themselves from him and his rhetoric, particularly his inability to denounce white nationalism, Politico reports.
“White supremacy should be denounced at every turn. I think the president misspoke, and he needs to correct it,” Tim Scott, the republican Senator from South Carolina and the only Black republican who will return for the next session of Congress, said almost apologetically Wednesday morning. “If he doesn’t correct it, I guess he didn’t misspeak.”
Even Brian Kilmeade, the Fox & Friends co-host who is not normally known for his political acumen, let alone acumen of any type, saw that Trump squandered what should have been an easy response.
“[Trump] ruined the biggest layup in the history of debates,” Kilmeade said. “That’s like [asking] ‘are you against evil?.’ Why the president didn’t just knock that out of the park, I’m not sure.”
Beleaguered South Carolina republican Senator Lindsey Graham, in a race for his political life which finds him tied with challenger Jaime Harrison while apparently running short of funds, tweeted “I agree with @SenatorTimScott statement about President Trump needing to make it clear Proud Boys is a racist organization antithetical to American ideals.”
However, not all republicans felt Trump made one of the biggest political blunders in a generation by not condemning racism and hate groups.
Georgia republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, running in a special election to keep her seat, claimed Trump was very clear in his avoidance of explicitly condemning hate groups and white supremacy during the debate.
“He has been very clear that there is no place for racism in this country,” Loeffler said. In reality, Trump was not “very clear” on the issue, instead demanding moderator Chris Wallace and Biden tell him what groups to condemn, to which Trump simply replied, “Sure.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a republican from California, argued that the president said recently he would designate the KKK a terrorist organization. There are a number of problems with that statement, including that there is no statute allowing the designation of a domestic group a terrorist organization and that the Ku Klux Klan isn’t a single organization any longer, but a smattering of small splinter groups around the country.