Eric Trump, left, with father Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, during the grand opening ceremony of the Trump International Hotel in Washington on Oct. 26. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's son Eric said Thursday that former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke “does deserve a bullet” during a radio interview.
“If I said exactly what you said, I'd get killed for it. But I think I'll say it anyway: The guy does deserve a bullet. I mean, these aren't good people, these are horrible people,” Eric Trump told Denver radio host Ross Kaminsky on 630 KHOW. “In fact, I commend my father. My father's the first Republican who's gone out and said, 'Listen, what's happened to the African American community is horrible and I'm going to take care of it.' "
Trump was responding to Kaminsky’s comment that Duke “desperately needs a bullet in the head, as far as I can tell.” Eric Trump defended his father against accusations from the left that the GOP nominee has encouraged xenophobic rhetoric and inciting racial grievances for political gain.
Eric Trump said that criticism was part of a broader strategy by the Democratic National Committee to delegitimize Trump.
“I agree, a guy like David Duke is disgusting. But this is the M.O. of the DNC,” Trump said. “And in fact, if you go back to the Podesta emails from May, June, there’s an email where he’s saying, ‘Listen, we think Trump has an amazing movement going and … the way we think we can best stop it is to make him look like a bigot, racist, xenophobic.’ This and that.”
