Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a “Commit to Caucus” event for his supporters in Coralville, Iowa, US, December 13, 2023.
Vincent Alban | Reuters
Biden’s campaign blasted former President Donald Trump for echoing Nazi sentiments in his repeated remarks Saturday night that immigrants are “blood poisoning” of the United States.
“Donald Trump shared his role models as he mocked 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,” said Biden-Harris 2024 campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa in a statement on Saturday.
The Republican frontrunner most recently repeated anti-immigrant remarks at a New Hampshire rally and at a Truth Social post saturday night But Trump has used this language almost verbatim since at least early September.
“It’s poisoning the blood of our country. It’s so bad, people are coming in sick,” he said in a September interview with far-right political propagandist Raheem Kassam.
In his manifesto “Mein Kampf”, Hitler used similar rhetoric about blood poisoning, declaring it an existential threat to the Aryan race.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Trump’s remarks.
Trump’s inflammatory comments came as Republican hard-liners in Congress refused to pass a Ukraine-Israel aid package until Democrats agreed to stricter border rules. Republicans want to tighten asylum restrictions and have proposed policies such as ankle bracelet monitors for people detained at the border.
Democrats have criticized those policies, leading to an impasse that preserves an aid package with billions of dollars in support for Ukraine and Israel in their respective wars. With House members in recess for the holiday break, that funding will likely be delayed until 2024.
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday was unfazed by Trump’s anti-immigrant remarks, doubling down on his commitment to tougher border policy.
“If you’re talking about the language that Trump is using instead of trying to fix it, that’s a losing strategy for the Biden administration,” Graham said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said on Sunday that “echoing the grotesque rhetoric of fascists and violent white supremacists” is an attack on American democracy.
In recent weeks, Trump has made several statements that appear to foreshadow his presidential strategy for a second term.
At the same New Hampshire rally on Saturday night, Trump quoted authoritarian Russian President Vladimir Putin as an apparent testament to his character: “Vladimir Putin, of Russia said that the prosecution of Biden – and it is a quote – that has a political motive with its political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy.”
He also said he would rule as a dictator on “day one” of his presidency.
Biden has previously called out the fact that the deadlocked Ukrainian aid package serves Russia’s foreign policy interests. After Republicans voted to block Ukraine aid, Biden quoted a Kremlin propagandist saying, “Well done, Republicans! That’s good for us.”
