House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), who’s rumored to be in the running for speaker of the House, once described himself to  “David Duke without the baggage,”.

Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana speaking at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2011, Gage Skidmore© provided by AlterNet

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), who’s rumored to be in the running for speaker of the House, once described himself to Louisiana politics reporter Stephanie Grace as “David Duke without the baggage,” the Guardian reports.

In a 2014 New York Times article, Grace “recalled her first meeting” with Scalise.

“He was explaining his politics and we were in this getting-to-know-each-other stage,” Grace told the paper. “He told me he was like David Duke without the baggage.”

"I think he meant he supported the same policy ideas as David Duke, but he wasn’t David Duke, that he didn’t have the same feelings about certain people as David Duke did,” Grace added.

In 2002, Scalise also attended — and spoke at — “a white supremacist conference organized by Duke,” a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, the Guardian reports.

When the “scandal” of Scalise’s participation at the 2002 conference resurfaced in 2014, Scalise released a statement distancing himself from the group, Politico reports.

“Twelve years ago, I spoke to many different Louisiana groups as a state representative, trying to build support for legislation that focused on cutting wasteful state spending, eliminating government corruption, and stopping tax hikes,” Scalise said.

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Scalise added that he “wholeheartedly [condemns] the group’s views and “emphatically [opposes] the divisive racial and religious views groups like these hold.”

“I am very disappointed that anyone would try to infer otherwise for political gain,” Scalise added. “As a Catholic, these groups hold views that are vehemently opposed to my own personal faith, and I reject that kind of hateful bigotry.”

Duke, however, told the Washington Post Scalise was “friendly” with Kenny Knight, Duke’s “longtime political adviser.”

“Scalise would communicate a lot with my campaign manager, Kenny Knight,” Duke told the Post. “That is why he was invited and why he would come. Kenny knew Scalise, Scalise knew Kenny. They were friendly.

As the Guardian reports, “Scalise did not comment on Grace’s” claim that Scalise once related himself to Duke.

Read the full report at the Guardian