JOHN BERMAN (HOST): We just heard it. The sound stopped right there. Jeffrey, you heard him say "how many times can I disavow David Duke?"

JEFFREY LORD: Margaret mentioned Ronald Reagan. When Ronald Reagan ran for governor of California, the press tried keep trying to get him to renounce the John Birch Society. And finally Reagan's answer was, "I am not endorsing them. They are endorsing me. I have nothing to do with them." He didn't play the game in other words. Donald Trump isn't playing the game, although he certainly denounced him. I mean, David Duke is a hardcore leftist. He's an anti-Semite. Yes, Margaret, the Ku Klux Klan is a function of the left. It was the military arm of the Democratic Party. Hello? Donald Trump's daughter and son-in-law are Jewish. David Duke is an anti-Semite, for heaven's sakes. This is ridiculous.

MARGARET HOOVER: When William F. Buckley was starting the conservative movement in the 1950s and 1960s, the John Birch Society did the same thing. They were trying to be part of the conservative movement and what William F. Buckley said is, "no, you have to stand for something. You have to have principles." He said "you are not going to be part of this movement." Where is the moral courage on behalf of Donald Trump, who aspires to be the leader of the free world, to say on some level at some point we do not need the voice and the support of bigotry?

LORD: Margaret, the Ku Klux Klan is a leftist group.

HOOVER: It is a hate group, Dave. It is a hate group, Jeffrey Lord.

LORD: It is a leftist group.

HOOVER: I don't care what side they're on. They are on for hate, they are on the side of hate. They are on the side of murder. They are on the side of blood on their hands. This is not -- to blame them on the left. This is a scourge on humanity, this is a scourge on American politics. And to suggest that it is part of the Democratic Party is missing the point. And your guy would not denounce them yesterday. And that is bad for America and it is bad for the Republican Party.

BERMAN: Go ahead, Jeffrey.

LORD: Margaret, it is a racist hate group from the left. And that counts. That is important to understand. It is not conservative. It has nothing to do with conservatism. All of these Klan members who have been elected to Congress and U.S. Senate and governorships over the years, supporting Franklin Roosevelt because they like Social Security. Let's get our history straight.

[...]

This is why -- this is exactly the kind of thing why people are voting for Donald Trump. Because they think the media is making something out of nothing. Nothing. This is crazy.