Watch 3 conservatives argue, in 3 different ways, that Trump's KKK response was a disqualifying game-changer

You know Donald Trump made a mistake when he implicitly admits he messed up. On Monday, as Trump blamed a "lousy earpiece," Republicans and other conservatives split over Trump's refusal Sunday to disavow David Duke and his former organization, the Ku Klux Klan, on CNN. It may be easy to discount Mitt Romney's criticism that Trump disqualified himself, since Romney, seen as a GOP moderate, and Trump are already feuding. But here are three more conservatives arguing in three different ways that Trump's brush-off of the KKK endorsement is a really, really big deal.

Joe Scarborough, the host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, has been famously friendly with Trump in recent weeks. On Monday's show, after co-host Mika Brzezinski morosely set up the CNN clip, Scarborough lit into Trump: "That's disqualifying right there. It's breathtaking. That is disqualifying right there."

A former Republican congressman from Florida, Scarborough seemed personally offended: "I mean, is he really so stupid that he doesn't think Southerners are offended by the Ku Klux Klan and David Duke? Is he really so ignorant of Southern voters that he thinks this is the way to their heart, to go neutral, to play Switzerland when you're talking about the Klan!?"

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On the more conservative end of the GOP spectrum, Hugh Hewitt offered a historical perspective. Trump's refusal to disavow David Duke "is what we call in politics a game-changer, equivalent to Mitt Romney's 47 percent comment four years ago, equivalent to Gerald Ford's comment in 1976 that Poland was free," he said on CNN, and even "as bad, much worse, actually," than several famous Hillary Clinton gaffes:

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) brought some home-town flavor and class resentment to the Trump take-down. King argued on Fox News that Trump's mixed message on the KKK and Duke shows that he'll say anything, "that he's temperamental, that he's erratic," and he lies when caught, a combination that makes him "not qualified to be president." Trump says "he's the tough guy, the tough guy from Queens," King added. "I grew up in Queens. The neighborhood he grew up in Queens, that's where the rich, pampered kids lived: Jamaica Estates. No tough guy ever came out of Jamaica Estates, I can tell you that."

None of the conservatives said they thought Trump's remarks would seriously hurt him on Super Tuesday.