A LITTLE LATE TO PRETEND YOU DIDN'T KNOW WHAT HE IS:

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday slammed as "ridiculous" Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's social media post depicting Democratic rival Hillary Clinton against a backdrop of cash and a Star of David, and said anti-semitic images have "no place in a presidential campaign."

It should come as no surprise that Donald Trump tweeted an anti-Semitic image of Hillary Clinton over the weekend. Nor should it come as a surprise that the image originated in the putrid swamps of the online alt-right, a group of anti-Semites, white supremacists and others who gather to indulge their various obsessive hatreds.

That's because Trump, despite occasional tepid demurrals, has spent the last year making his campaign a safe space for these groups. A study published in Fortune back in March showed that 67.5 percent of the most influential tweeters of #WhiteGenocide - a hashtag favored by white supremacists - follow Trump. (By comparison, 17.7 percent followed Ted Cruz, and 5.7 percent followed Clinton.)

While candidates can't help who supports them, they can help how they respond. And Trump has responded with something between a secret handshake and a warm embrace. He regularly retweets white supremacists. He hesitated to denounce support from Klan leader David Duke. And he has accrued a substantial collection of his own racist quotes about Muslims, Mexicans and African-Americans. He favors racist policies, too - everything from his Muslim ban to his openness to internment.

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