Donald Trump on Monday told supporters in Georgia that he is “the opposite of a Nazi” as he responded to comparisons of Sunday’s Republican rally at Madison Square Garden with a 1939 pro-Nazi rally. in the same location.
The former president also tried to turn criticism of the rally into a flashpoint for all Trump supporters, falsely claiming that Vice President Kamala Harris is calling those who voted for him Nazis.
“The newest line from Kamala and her campaign is that anyone who isn’t voting for her is a Nazi,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Georgia, a line his Democratic rival didn’t actually say.
Kamala launched an attack on her opponent last week after The Atlantic reported that Trump, while in the White House, had expressed admiration for the loyalty of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi generals.
This account was corroborated by retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, who separately told The New York Times that Trump met the definition of a fascist.
Kamala responded to these reports at a Town Hall in CNN saying he thinks Trump is a fascist and that “the people who know him best on this issue should be trusted.” His campaign has also used The Atlantic’s report and Kelly’s comments in ads in recent days.
Trump appeared to be responding to those comments Monday night in Georgia when he said his father had encouraged him never to describe people as Nazis or Hitler.
“He always used to say, ‘Never use the word Nazi. Never use that word.’ And he said, ‘Never use the word Hitler. Don’t use that word,’” Trump said.
Referring to Democrats, Trump added: “They use that word — actually, it’s both words. ‘He’s Hitler.’ And then they say, ‘He’s a Nazi.’”
“I’m not a Nazi,” Trump said. “I’m the opposite of a Nazi.”
Trump also responded to Kamala calling him a fascist by saying, “She’s a fascist, okay? She is a fascist.”
Trump’s description of Kamala comes despite Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell days earlier calling the vice president’s use of the word “reckless” and claiming that it could lead to violence.
Comments on Puerto Rico at Trump rally
The attacks on Kamala come amid the political fallout from Trump’s Sunday rally at the iconic Madison Square Garden, where a comedian who opened the speech for the former president called Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash” — a comment that drew widespread conviction and triggered backlash among a fast-growing Latino group in Pennsylvania.
Kamala told reporters Monday that the comments at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally were “not new” for a former president who regularly uses violent rhetoric targeting undocumented immigrants.
“It’s just more of the same, and maybe more vivid, than usual,” Kamala said. “Donald Trump spends all his time trying to get Americans to point fingers at each other. He stokes the fuel of hate and division, which is why people are exhausted by him,” she added.
Kamala did not call Trump, or his supporters, Nazis. However, his running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, said on Sunday that there was “a direct parallel” between Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden and the notorious 1939 gathering of Nazi supporters at the historic arena in the city of New York.
“And don’t think he doesn’t know for a second exactly what they’re doing there,” Walz said.
Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, spoke out Monday about that comparison.
“They decided to compare us to literal Nazis for gathering at Madison Square Garden and celebrating the United States of America. These are the same people, of course, who call us racists for wanting to protect the southern border. They are the same people who have no plans, ideas and solutions. All they have is hatred for their fellow citizens,” Vance said at a campaign stop in Wisconsin.
Later, at another event, Vance argued that the values of the American soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy to fight Nazi Germany in World War II are far from the policies Kamala supports.
“If you think those brave men were fighting for an open border and sex change surgeries for illegal immigrants,” Vance said, “the appropriate term for you is ‘idiot.’”
Kit Maher, Aaron Pellish, Nikki Carvajal, Michael Williams and Kate Sullivan from CNN contributed to this report.
This content was originally published in Trump calls Kamala a fascist and says he is “the opposite of a Nazi” on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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