As leaders in Washington negotiate a bipartisan immigration deal, former President Donald Trump used inflammatory language to demonize immigrants during a Saturday campaign speech in New Hampshire that echoed Adolf Hitler.
Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination for president in next year’s election, said that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” He pledged to toughen immigration laws, including by reinstating a travel ban from “terror-plagued countries” and requiring “strong ideological screening” for immigrants in the country without authorization.
“They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” he told his supporters in Durham, New Hampshire, referring to immigrants.
“That’s what they’ve done. They’ve poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the 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. Nobody’s even looking at it.”
Hitler used similar language about Jews “poison[ing] the blood of others,” in “Mein Kampf,” his 1925 manifesto.
Trump also praised authoritarian leaders in other countries, including North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whom he called “very nice” and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whom he called “highly respected.” And he endorsed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s criticism of President Joe Biden.
New Hampshire’s primary is Jan. 23, following the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15. Trump leads in polling in both states.
In a written statement, Biden’s reelection campaign said Trump “channeled” past and present dictators.
“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,” campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a written statement.
A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not respond to a message seeking comment Monday.
Trump’s remarks came as U.S. Senate leaders and the White House seek to work out an agreement on changes to immigration policy as part of a larger deal that includes a $100 billion supplemental request to fund aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and U.S. border security.
‘Dog-whistling’
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is running in the GOP primary on an anti-Trump platform, called the comments “disgusting” during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.
“He’s disgusting,” Christie said. “And what he’s doing is dog-whistling to Americans who feel absolutely under stress and strain from the economy and the conflicts across the world. He’s dog-whistling to blame it on people from areas that don’t look like us.”
Christie added that leading Republicans who continued to support Trump were complicit. He noted that almost 100 members of Congress have endorsed Trump and that presidential rival Nikki Haley of South Carolina called Trump fit to be president.
“Nikki Haley should be ashamed of herself,” he said. “She’s part of the problem because she’s enabling him.”
The Haley campaign did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Authoritarian rhetoric
Trump has consistently degraded immigrants since his entrance into national politics in the 2016 presidential race and it continues to be among his most prominent themes as the campaign intensifies heading into 2024.
In the run-up to the 2016 election, Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” and issued an executive order a week after entering office to block travel from certain Muslim-majority countries.
The executive order, and a successor, framed the policy as a national security issue in response to terror threats, but federal courts still blocked it for violating religious freedoms and other civil liberties. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld parts of the order, but Biden revoked it in full on his first day in office.
In recent weeks, Trump has made a string of comments that suggest he sees himself as an authoritarian leader.
In a November speech, he described his political opponents as “vermin,” another term used by Hitler and his World War II ally Benito Mussolini of Italy.
And in a Fox News town hall this month, Trump responded to a request to dispel fears he would be a dictator in a second term by saying he would be a dictator only on his first day in office to take measures to control the border and expand fossil fuel development.
He emphasized that pledge Saturday.
“My first day back at the White House, I will terminate every open-borders policy of the Biden administration, stop the invasion of our Southern border and begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” he said.
Republicans often use the word “invasion” to characterize the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has seen an increase in encounters with migrants at the U.S. Southern border, according to its data. In fiscal year 2022, there were nearly 2.4 million encounters with migrants, and in fiscal year 2023, which ended on Oct. 1, there were nearly 2.5 million encounters with migrants at the Southern border.
Trump’s rhetoric throughout Saturday’s speech cast the former president as the leader of a “righteous crusade.”
“This is the greatest political movement in the history of our country, it really is,” he said. “We’re engaged in a righteous crusade to liberate this nation from a corrupt political class that is waging war on American democracy like never before.
“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” he continued. “If you put me back in the White House, their reign will be over and America will be a free nation once again. We are not a free nation.”
–Jacob Fischler, Florida Phoenix
FlaPharmTech says
Trump has no place in modern America. He’s courting the worst of our past. Move along folks, absolutely nothing to see here.
Judith Michaud says
Right on point! The scary thing, is he will be gone but his brainwashed followers will still be here! Sad times for America !
joe says
“Moving along….nothing to see here” is absolutely NOT the approach to take – if you only see bits of Trump’s speeches on the news you are sadly ignorant of the depth of his vile and sickening rhetoric being spewed at his rallies. The cult members are ingesting this day after day, and for years on end due to the right wing media pumping it out shamelessly.
Trump is spelling out what he plans ……we cannot afford not to take it seriously. It’s profoundly sad that so many are dismissing the obvious danger he poses – and even worse that so many seem to long for the authoritarian hellscape he promises,
marlee says
Trump’s close Immigrant relatives:
My mother was born in Scotland, in the Hebrides, in Stornoway, so that’s serious Scotland. And she was a great woman,” Trump said in a 2010 documentary.
“My grandfather Frederick Trump came to the United States in 1885.
Trump’s current wife is an immigrant herself. “She went through a long process to become a citizen. It was very tough,” Trump told CNN
And of course, Trump’s first wife, Ivana, was an immigrant too. Born in Czechoslovakia. She and Trump married in 1977, but she didn’t become an American citizen for another 11 years.
Samuel says
Anyone that votes for his Hitler worshiper is just as guilty as he is. Sorry I was born in the US and am a proud Amerian and cherish our democracy and freedom.
Only racists and communist support Trump and you all need to leave the USA because you have no place here. Go live in North Kores and let us know how you like it.
Laurel says
This is the worst bigotry I’ve seen in this country, in my lifetime, since the 1950’s and the early 1960’s. There are no more “dog whistles,” this is flat out, nasty, soulless bigotry. Trump fed off this bigotry before he ran for President. It runs in his family. It’s so sad to see so many of us have not evolved, but instead, a large portion of us have a need to be superior to others. Trump cashes in on that insecurity.
I can barely believe that the majority of Republicans are okay with rounding up people and putting them in camps as Trump promises to do. This is the very thing that our WWII soldiers fought and gave up their lives and limbs to end! Don’t bother to tell me that Democrats are the bigoted ones, we’re talking about here and now. But, if you want to look at the past, know that Mussolini ended hanging dead upside down. Know that Hitler shot himself in the head in his bunker after his failed attempt to take over democracy. Know that Osama Bin Laden was assassinated in his compound. Authoritarian leaders tend to end badly, eventually.
We Will Not Be Moved says
You hit the nail on the head! I’m flabbergasted that they are still supporting him too, my better angels tell me we will survive this but it will be bloody! The only way a dictator can rule is with fear. Many people fear him but not everyone!
Laurel says
I would like to see some Republican supporters, here, comment on Trump’s Hitleresk talk, and how they see this as acceptable, without once mentioning Biden, or Bidenomics, as a distraction. Stick to the topic, please. I’m watching how Hitler managed to move large amounts of people to do horrendous things, right before my eyes in the present, in the United States of America, which fought the Nazis, and Hitler, during World War Two. How is it okay now?
The dude says
Sadly, the vast majority of the cons in FL not only support “Trump’s Hitleresk talk”, they love love love it.
Lee says
Dude, that’s so true and unfortunately these brainwashed cult followers are teaching their off springs !!
These people need to wake up because the doom of Trumpisum is at their doorstep and won’t be pretty…
We Will Not Be Moved says
I can honestly say that trump is betting the bank that this becomes a civil war. What else could be his reasoning?
In my many years of defending this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic and defending the freedoms that so many gave the ultimate sacrifice for would I have fathomed that the next one would be over stopping trump from becoming a dictator!
Complete transparency: It’s not gonna go down the way his sycophants think it will. There are more sane patriots (and I don’t use the word loosely) that believe in our not so perfect county, and our democratic experiment, that we will not succumb to authoritarianism!
He’s shown his hand and there is no walking it back. Those that follow him will fight his battle, he won’t be there just like he wasn’t there on J6. I’ll say it out loud and clear, I will not follow a dictator!
The GOP have hitched there wagon to this authoritarian wannabe and are totally complicit in this anarchy. If the Democrats, sane republicans, and independent voters don’t put down their “Biden is too old BS”, and out-vote trumps authoritarian run, it will be the end of democracy as we know it. Y’all will be under Putin’s U.S. Puppetmaster!