MANDEVILLE, La. _ David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan who's hoping to ride Donald Trump's coattails into the U.S. Senate, was happy to welcome a reporter into his home to talk politics.
He was happy to expound on the threat immigrants pose to Western culture, and explore the vast similarities between his platform and the GOP presidential nominee's on a border wall, trade, crime and affirmative action.
Happy to forgive Trump for keeping his distance if that boosts his chances, and sure to emphasize that President Trump would find in Sen. Duke an enthusiastic ally.
But first, Duke insisted on playing a YouTube video to frame the interview: "CNN, Goldman Sachs & the Zio Matrix." For 15 minutes, Duke warns of the pervasive influence of Jewish bankers, campaign donors, judges and journalists.
"Are you Jewish or gentile?" he asks when the video ends, 28 seconds into what would be a two-hour conversation. "I know some Jews _ there are a lot of Jews who are fair."
Duke, 66, is engaging and articulate. His white Maltese, Torrie, is adorable and friendly. She jumps on a visitor's lap and her master's, between naps on a chair.
But the setting shows the hate he's built his public persona on, the racial antagonism that draws national attention even as Trump's appeals to aggrieved whites draw scrutiny. Duke's bookshelves are filled with volumes on the FBI vs. the KKK, Holocaust denial, impending race war and the neo-Nazi case for nationalism, along with mementos from previous campaigns.
Trump and other Republicans have shunned Duke as ardently as he's courted votes in Louisiana by tapping the strains of anger and anxiety that propelled the New York real estate mogul.
"Mr. Trump has repeatedly denounced David Duke and strongly condemns his message of hate," spokeswoman Hope Hicks said last Thursday. "He will continue to disavow this individual. There is no place for this in the Republican Party or our country."
Duke is a long shot to make a two-spot runoff that will decide the open seat. But statewide and beyond Louisiana, he's far better known than the congressmen and others vying to replace retiring Sen. David Vitter.
This month, Hillary Clinton asserted that up to half of the Trump coalition fit in a "basket of deplorables." Trump and his allies pounced on the insult to millions of decent Americans _ many, like Duke's target audience, working-class whites who resent elites and see the nation's political and economic systems as stacked against them.
The Democrats' rebuttal boiled down to: But David Duke. Isn't he deplorable? Doesn't his support for Trump tarnish the nominee?
"It's ridiculous for anyone to condemn any candidate for who supports them. If that's fair, then Hillary Clinton can be condemned for being supported by a communist," Duke said, referring to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who describes himself as a socialist.
Or for that matter, he added, the late West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, an "exalted Cyclops" in the Klan before he became a liberal Democrat.
In any case, Duke said, he left the Klan after three years once he realized its image was keeping people from hearing his ideas. "I don't apologize for _ as a young man _ joining a nonviolent organization to defend the rights and heritage of white people, which I think are threatened in this country, terribly threatened," he said.
"The reason the media calls me evil is that I defend the rights of white people, the heritage of white people," he said.
In Duke's narrative, the biased news media are enemies he and Trump share _ though only Duke blamed that on the undue influence of Jews. In any case, he said, Trump should really embrace him.
"I would be his biggest advocate in the United States Senate for the main issues that he stands for _ building that wall, and fair trade instead of free trade," he said.
