How should a candidate - any candidate - respond, if at all, to something like this, though? There's no evidence Trump asked for Duke, Code Pink or any other whackjob to say anything.
When I ran for office, the only endorsements I actively sought were those of pro-life and pro-2d amendment groups. If it appeared in the newspaper that some idiot white supremacist or a communist had expressed his support for me, I'd have been mortified.
Here's how you deal with unwanted endorsements.
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/05/02/us/reagan-spurns-klan-support.htmlWASHINGTON, May 1— President Reagan, saying he had ''no tolerance'' for what the Ku Klux Klan represented, today repudiated the group's endorsement.
In a letter to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, the President said:
''Those of us in public life can only resent the use of our names by those who seek political recognition for the repugnant doctrines of hate they espouse.
''The politics of racial hatred and religious bigotry practiced by the Klan and others have no place in this country, and are destructive of the values for which America has always stood.''
A White House spokesman, Anson Frank, said that the President signed the letter while in China and that it was delivered today to Morris B. Abram, a Civil Rights Commission member who requested it after reading news reports that Klan leaders in Georgia had endorsed Mr. Reagan. (Endorsement Last Month)
When the Klan endorsement was first reported last month, neither the White House nor the President's re- election campaign committee would comment on it.
In his letter to Mr. Abram, the President said: ''While in China, I have been distressed to learn that some individuals back home have questioned whether my views on the Ku Klux Klan have somehow changed since 1980. Nothing could be further from the truth.''