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A White Nationalist Super PAC is Campaigning for Trump in Iowa

"We don't need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump."
Imagen por CJ Gunther/EPA

White nationalists are encouraging Iowans, at least the ones who still own a landline, to vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential primary election, through a campaign of automated phone calls and radio ads across the state.

"I urge you to vote for Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who points out that we should accept immigrants who are good for America," Jared Taylor, the spokesperson for the Council of Conservative Citizens and founder of the white supremacist magazine American Renaissance, says in the robocall that began reaching Iowans on Saturday. "We don't need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump."

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The Council of Conservative Citizens is the successor to the White Citizens' Council, an affiliate of white supremacist groups that fought racial integration in the American south in the mid-20th century. The Council of Conservative Citizens is also the group that Dylann Roof, the mass shooter who killed nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, last summer, cited as inspiration in his manifesto.

In addition to the calls, a series of pro-Trump radio shows will begin airing on Iowa radio starting tomorrow. The radio show is called "For God and Country," and is hosted by Filipino-American Christian minister Ronald Tan and the head of the white supremacist American Freedom Party, William Johnson, according to the press release announcing the media blitz.

"Nationalists look to Donald Trump as 'The Great White Hope' for their cause," the press release states.

The calls and radio airtime are paid for by the pro-Trump Super PAC American National, which was first  reported by Talking Points Memo. Johnson founded the American National Super PAC in November of last year, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.

"First Corinthians states: God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise and God chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong," Tan says in the call. "For the Iowa caucuses, please support Donald Trump. He is courageous and he speaks his mind. God Bless."

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This is not the first time in this election that white supremacists have expressed their love for the Donald Trump candidacy. Many of Trump's brazen positions that have offended pretty much everyone else, in particular his call to ban all Muslims from entering the US in December, resonate with white supremacists who have finally found a major-party frontrunner who agrees with some of their ideas.

Trump "has clearly been a benefit to us," Don Black, a former Klu Klux Klan leader who runs the white supremacist website Stormfront.org, told VICE News in December, soon after Trump first proposed his anti-Muslim immigration policy. "There's an insurgency among our people that has been seething for decades that have felt intimidated and demoralized. The Trump candidacy has changed all that," added Black.

Trump also appeals to white supremacists, in addition to many of his other supporters, for his famous tendency to speak his mind. "Donald Trump says what he believes," Tan is quoted as saying in American Freedom Party's press release. "He may be weak and foolish in the eyes of man, but he is qualified to be an instrument in God's hands."

American National is unaffiliated with Trump, which the group was careful to make clear in the robocalls (the original name was American National Trump Super PAC, which the group had to change since it violated FEC rules that ban unaffiliated Super PACs from referencing a candidate's name). American National's pro-Trump radio show will last until January 22, concluding just over a week before the Iowa caucus takes place on February 1.

Follow Olivia Becker on Twitter:  @obecker928