Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., sought to take the edge off comments he made earlier this week suggesting President Trump is a Ku Klux Klan sympathizer.
At a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration in New York City on Monday, Jeffries — the head on the House Democratic Caucus — referred to Trump as “the grand wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Jeffries claimed, “Of course I don’t believe that the president is a card-carrying member of the KKK.”
“We’ve got to have an opportunity for at least one day a year to have a candid, if sometimes uncomfortable, conversation about race,” he said.
Jeffries, an outspoken critic of Trump, declined to explicitly call the president a racist and said he has consistently said “no” when people have asked him.
Early last year, Jeffries blasted Trump after he suggested it was treasonous for Democrats not to applaud during his State of the Union.
“How dare you lecture us about treason,” Jeffries said of Trump. “This is not a dictatorship. It’s a democracy, and we do not have to stand for a reality show host masquerading as president of the United States of America.”
[Related: Alyssa Milano compares Trump supporters to KKK: ‘The red MAGA hat is the new white hood’]
