Hewitt: Trump's Denials on Duke, KKK 'Disqualifying Moment'

Donald Trump's statements over the weekend about former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke are a "disqualifying audio" that will continue to define his candidacy unless he comes out strongly against Duke and his followers, conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt said Monday.

"I believe this is the 47 percent moment of this campaign cycle," Hewitt told CNN's Carol Costello, making a reference to the damage former GOP nominee Mitt Romney caused his own campaign when he said 47 percent of the voters would vote to reelect President Barack Obama, no matter what.

However, Hewitt said that Trump's statements to CNN's Jake Tapper, in which he claimed to not know anything about Duke, were much worse than Romney's "47 percent error."

"You look for the moments that define a campaign, you'll remember this," Hewitt said. "This is the kind of thing that in two weeks can sink a campaign."

There is still a way to control the damage, but it won't be easy, said Hewitt.

"He'll have to come in the March 10 debate," said Hewitt, who insisted he does not believe Trump to be a racist. "There's rumors he'll skip. Now he has to do what Romney did not do on the 47 percent, which is go after the KKK at every stop again and again. He ought to be calling every radio station in America to denounce the KKK. That is a disqualifying audio that may be in every book about this campaign cycle in the first paragraph."

Thirty years ago, Ronald Reagan faced a similar dilemma, the program pointed out, and came out strongly, saying after a KKK endorsement that "those of us in public life can only resent the use of our names by those who seek political recognition of hate."

But now, Hewitt said, the media has shattered and it's impossible to capture a similar audience.

"The audio remains forever," said Hewitt. "It will be in every Hillary Clinton ad. It will be in every Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz speech. It is there. It's marked."

Trump, Hewitt, continued, should be going on all the shows he can to try and get his comments pulled back. The New Yorker did appear on NBC's "Today" show, where he blamed his answers on a "lousy earpiece" provided by CNN that made it difficult for him to understand Tapper's questions.

"That Jake Tapper audio, you can't erase it," said Hewitt. "It's never going away. Can you imagine the impact of that when that plays on the weekend before the November election in every African American community across every swing state in America?"

Hewitt said he agrees with MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, who also said the Trump statements are a disqualifying factor.

"Political professionals think in 30 second sound bites," said Hewitt. "That's devastating. The Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act over the filibuster by Al Gore's father. They beat back the white racists of the south. They are the party of Lincoln. Donald has to go out and attack this. It was a huge error, terrible."

Further, Hewitt said he can't imagine that anyone who wants to be president would say they don't know who David Duke is.

"It's like Gerald Ford saying Poland is free in the 1976 debate," said Hewitt. "It's like Hillary Clinton saying she left the White House impoverished. She has a long list as well, but none of them as devastating on election weekend in November as this one."

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