Speaking at a predominantly black college in Florida on Friday, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine escalated his attacks against the Republican nominee, going so far as to link him to “KKK values.”
“Ku Klux Klan values, David Duke values, Donald Trump values are not American values,” Kaine said while campaigning in Tallahassee at Florida A&M University.
Kaine’s comments come as the both Clinton and Trump have traded race-related barbs over the last several days; Trump has accused Clinton of being a “bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future.”
On Thursday, Clinton’s campaign released an anti-Trump video featuring a KKK member. The video argued “these people support Trump because they believe Trump supports them.”
Speaking to the black audience on Friday, Kaine continued to suggest Trump is a racist.
“Donald Trump was a main guy behind the scurrilous and I would say bigoted notion that President Obama wasn’t even born in this country and Donald Trump has continued to push that irresponsible falsehood from all the way up to now,” Kaine said.
Referencing Clinton’s anti-Trump speech on Thursday, Kaine attacked Trump for having “supporters like David Duke, connected with the Ku Klux Klan who are going around and saying that Donald Trump is their candidate because Donald Trump is pushing their values.”
At a rally on Thursday, Trump said: “It’s the oldest play in the Democratic playbook. When Democratic policies fail, they are left with only this one tired argument: ‘You’re racist, you’re racist, you”re racist.” They keep saying it. ‘You’re racist.’ It’s a tired, disgusting argument.”