In Iowa, O'Rourke Says Some Trump Rhetoric Echoes Nazi Germany
In Iowa, O'Rourke Says Some Trump Rhetoric Echoes Nazi Germany
(Bloomberg) -- Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke told a crowd in Sioux City, Iowa, that some of President Donald Trump’s inflammatory remarks echo the rhetoric of Nazi Germany’s “Third Reich.”
He said the administration’s policy of separating families who cross the Mexican border unlawfully “follows the rhetoric of a president who not only describes immigrants as rapists and criminals but as animals and an infestation.
“Now, I might expect someone to describe another human being as an infestation in the Third Reich. I would not expect it in the United States of America,” O’Rourke said Thursday, drawing heavy applause from the young crowd at Morningside College.
At a White House event in May 2018, Trump ripped into undocumented immigrants and said “these aren’t people, these are animals.” He later said he was referring to MS-13 gang members. The same month, he tweeted that Democrats “want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13.”
Asked about the charged comparison by a reporter after the town hall, O’Rourke stood by it and cited Trump’s calls to ban Muslims and his remark at the dawn of his presidential campaign that Mexico was sending rapists to the U.S.
“Calling human beings an infestation is something that we might’ve expected to hear in Nazi Germany,” the former Texas congressman said. “Describing immigrants, who have a track record of committing violent crimes at a lower rate than native-born Americans as rapists and criminals. Seeking to ban all Muslims -- all people of one religion, what other country on the face of the planet does that kind of thing?”
“Putting kids in cages. Saying that neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists are very fine people,” he added, evoking Trump’s remarks in 2017 that there were “very fine people” in the pro- and anti-white nationalism marches in Charlottesville, Virginia.
O’Rourke’s comparison on Thursday night came in response to a question about how he would take on Trump if he’s the 2020 Democratic nominee.
He said he would seek to “pull this country together around the work that’s ahead.” He vowed to jettison the “pettiness and meanness and personal attacks,” arguing that Democrats may lose if they try to match Trump’s approach because Trump is too “gifted” at that style of campaigning.
The Texan’s blistering critique of the president came as the large and diverse field of Democratic contenders — which grew to 16 on Thursday with the entry of Ohio Representative Tim Ryan — look for ways to distinguish themselves. And the front-runner in most surveys, former Vice President Joe Biden, has yet to announce his plans.
O’Rourke, who’s polling near the top of the pack, recently announced that he had raised $9.4 million over the first 18 days of his campaign.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sahil Kapur in Washington at skapur39@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, John Harney
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