David Duke Asks New York Times Reporter, ‘Are You Jewish?’

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By Daniel J. Solomon December 12, 2016

The New York Times reported a story over the weekend about how the “alt-right” is attempting to clean up its image, now that President-elect Donald Trump’s victory has brought its message to the mainstream. But David Duke seems not to have gotten the memo, asking the newspaper’s reporters a question that reveals that it’s still the same for him.

“Are you Jewish?” the former Klan leader, failed politician and Holocaust denier asked one of the reporters working on the piece, titled “An Alt-Right Makeover Shrouds the Swastikas.” The article’s authors were Joseph Goldstein, Julie Turkewitz, Serge Kovaleski and Dan Barry. It remains unclear to which of them he posed the question.

Duke, prominent long before the ascendance of the “alt-right” and Trump, has tried to ride the coattails of the movement and the candidate. He ran for a United States Senate seat from this November openly embracing the president-elect, which led Trump to disavow his support.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon

Daniel J. Solomon is the former Assistant to the Editor/News Writer at the Forward. Originally from Queens, he attended Harvard as an undergraduate, where he wrote his senior thesis on French-Jewish intellectual history. He is excited to have returned to New York after his time in Massachusetts. Daniel’s passions include folk music, cycling, and pointed argument.

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