Republican strategist Roger Stone tells
Newsmax TV that if he were still advising Donald Trump's presidential campaign he would have told him to be more forceful in disavowing former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke's support, but he added that Trump is not a racist.
"On the other hand, I know Trump," Stone said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show." "He's created thousands of jobs for black people, for Asians, for Hispanics, for all Americans. He's just not a hater."
It is the Obama White House that has entertained the Muslim Brotherhood, Stone noted. "Believe me, that's a racist organization. Those folks are haters. They're radical terrorists."
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As for Duke, Trump has denounced him in the past, Stone said, adding, "Possibly because of Duke's multiple plastic surgeries Trump didn't recognize him."
The Republican establishment will never throw in the towel and acknowledge Donald Trump is running away with this nomination, Stone said. "Therefore, we're now in a last-ditch brokered convention strategy."
Stone said megadonors David and Charles Koch and their associates gave Marco Rubio $25 million in New York last week, but told him that he has until the Florida primary to beat Trump.
"If he doesn't win there, he's going to get the hook," Stone said.
The Koch network also raised $100 million for anti-Trump ads, he said, though the Kochs have denied it.
The Kochs are "moving around dark money," he said, which he said "is what they do best."
The Kochs' strategy, Stone argues, is for Mitt Romney to enter the race if Rubio fails and compete in the late states of New Jersey, California, Michigan and others.
That would keep Trump from getting enough votes on the first ballot to get the nomination, causing a brokered convention.
"It is entirely possible that Trump could run the table on these primaries, winning all of them with a plurality, but because of irregularities in Ohio, Kasich grabs Ohio, Cruz today narrowly wins Texas, you've already got some votes in the hands of other candidates and they play a game of keep away because they know they can get to the convention," he said.
Addressing his ban on CNN for criticizing commentator Ana Navarro, Stone said he has appeared on the network only three times since August, so, "How do they bar you from some club where you were never even a member?"
Stone said he won't drop his criticism of Navarro, because she is unqualified, calling herself a Republican strategist, "but [she] has never been a strategist in any campaign in any place."
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