Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

David Duke Says Jews Are ‘Real Problem’ — and Opposition to Donald Trump Proves It

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke told his radio audience Wednesday that Jewish opposition to Donald Trump shows that Jews are “the real problem” and the “reason why America is not great.”

The comments, first noted by the website Right Wing Watch, came the day after the New York businessman all but secured the Republican nomination with a decisive primary victory in Indiana.

Duke praised Trump’s win, calling it an “amazing victory.”

One of the nation’s most prominent white supremacists, Duke is a former member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and has run unsuccessful campaigns for Louisana governor, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the presidency. Trump declined to disavow Duke’s support in a February CNN interview, saying that he didn’t “know anything about David Duke.” (Trump later claimed he “could hardly hear” the CNN reporter who had asked him the question.)

In his May 4 comments, Duke blamed Republican Jews for efforts to keep Trump from becoming the Republican nominee.

“Jewish chutzpah knows no bounds,” Duke said, butchering the pronunciation of the Yiddish word.

Later, Duke continued: “I think these Jewish extremists have made a terribly crazy miscalculation, because all they’re going to be doing by doing a Never Trump movement is exposing their alien, their anti-American, anti-American majority position… They’re going to push people more into an awareness that that the neo-cons are the problem, that these Jewish supremacists who control our country are the real problem, and the reason why America is not great.”

Ironically, Duke’s comments came as prominent Jewish Republicans were lining up in support of Trump, with former George W. Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer tweeting that he would “vote for Trump over Hillary any day.”

Republican Jewish Coalition chairman David Flaum issued a statement Wednesday afternoon congratulating Trump, and saying that Hillary Clinton is “the worst possible choice for a commander in chief.”

Image by Wikimedia Commons

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.