Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is drawing criticism for refusing to denounce an implicit endorsement from a white supremacist leader.
The furore comes just two days before multiple state primaries could put him on an irreversible path to the party's nomination, and his main rivals, senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, are using the support of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon David Duke to hammer the billionaire businessman.
Trump was asked on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday whether he rejected support from Duke and other white supremacists after Duke told his radio followers this week a vote against Trump was equivalent to "treason to your heritage".
"Well, just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke. OK?" Trump told host Jake Tapper.
"I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists."
Trump was asked on Friday by journalists how he felt about Duke's support. He said he did not know anything about it and curtly said: "All right, I disavow, OK?"
Trump has not always claimed ignorance on Duke's history.
In 2000, he wrote a New York Times op-ed explaining why he abandoned the possibility of running for president on the Reform Party ticket, saying the group had an "underside" and "fringe element": "I leave the Reform Party to David Duke, Pat Buchanan and Lenora Fulani. That is not company I wish to keep."
Trump's comments sparked a wave of censures just before Super Tuesday - March 1 - when 11 states hold Republican primaries.
At stake are 595 delegates to the party's national convention this summer, with 1237 needed to win the nomination.
Campaigning in Virginia, Rubio pounced on Trump's latest position on Duke.
"We cannot be a party who refuses to condemn white supremacists and the Ku Klux Klan," the Florida senator told supporters gathered in Leesburg, Virginia.
"Not only is that wrong, it makes him unelectable. How are we going to grow the party if we nominate someone who doesn't repudiate the Ku Klux Klan?"
Cruz also weighed in on Sunday, calling Trump's comments "really sad".
"You're better than this," Cruz wrote. "We should all agree, racism is wrong, KKK is abhorrent."
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders also lashed out, tweeting: "America's first black president cannot and will not be succeeded by a hatemonger who refuses to condemn the KKK."
Trump also garnered backlash for recently retweeting a quote from Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, which reads: "It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep."
Trump told NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, "I know who said it. But what difference does it make whether it's Mussolini or somebody else? It's certainly a very interesting quote."
On CNN, Trump explained his own brand of populism.
"I'm representing a lot of anger out there," he said on CNN.
"We're not angry people, but we're angry at the way this country's being run (and) angry at the way the Republican Party is being run."
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