Donald Trump has been accused once again of echoing Adolf Hitler following remarks about immigrants he made at a rally.
The former president, the frontrunner or the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, claimed immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the United States during an event in Durham, New Hampshire, on Saturday.
“They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” he said. “They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America, not just in three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.”
He added: “Nobody is even looking at them, they just come in and the crime is going to be tremendous, the terrorism is going to be.”
President Joe Biden’s campaign quickly denounced Trump, saying he had “parroted Hitler.”
Trump: They’re poisoning the blood of country.. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world not just in South America… but all over the world they’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia pic.twitter.com/fv38EABo1a
— Acyn (@Acyn) December 16, 2023
“Tonight Donald Trump channeled his role models as he parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un, and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for president on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy,” Biden-Harris 2024 spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement. Trump is “betting he can win this election by scaring and dividing this country. He’s wrong.”
Scott Eisen/Getty Images
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told Newsweek that the former president “gave a great speech and knocked it out of the park in front of over 10,000 people who came out to see him.
“Contrast that with mainstream media and academia-at-large who have given safe haven for dangerous antisemitic and pro-Hamas rhetoric that is both dangerous and alarming considering what is going on in the world.”
Others on social media also said Trump was channeling Hitler.
“Let’s be clear: migrants ‘poisoning the blood’ is Hitler rhetoric,” MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Classic Trump: say something crazy outrageous, neo-Nazi-like and it gets headlines, creates outrage.
So wait a little. Then say it again, no one notices, no coverage, and it gets normalized and mainstreamed.
Let’s be clear: migrants ‘poisoning the blood’ is Hitler rhetoric. https://t.co/H3QZtIYbaK
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) December 16, 2023
Robert Reich, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and former Labor Secretary, wrote that “claiming that immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of the country’ is the literal language of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.”
Reich said Trump and his allies “are openly embracing fascism, and it’s time for the media to stop being scared to use that word.”
Claiming that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country” is the literal language of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Trump and his allies are openly embracing fascism, and it’s time for the media to stop being scared to use that word. https://t.co/rWFr1HpgtQ
— Robert Reich (@RBReich) December 16, 2023
Dean Obeidallah, a SiriusXM Radio show host, wrote: “We must NEVER let Trump normalize Nazi propoganda [sic]. He must be called out LOUDLY every time so that the average person who doesn’t follow politics hears that Trump is knowingly quoting Hitler.”
Trump previously claimed that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” in an interview with The National Pulse website in September.
Hitler’s Mein Kampf has several passages in which he uses words such as “blood” and “poison” to attack Jews and others he viewed as a threat to the Aryan race’s purity.
He also sparked criticism and comparisons to Hitler after vowing to “root out” his opponents and calling them “vermin” in a Veterans Day message on social media.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.