After Donald Trump made a series of shocking comments which drew comparisons to Adolf Hitler, he has now claimed that he knows “nothing about” the Nazi leader.
Over the past few weeks, the 2024 GOP frontrunner has been accused of pulling phrases from Hitler’s playbook.
One such remark was made last week at a rally in New Hampshire, in which he said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country”. The statement prompted President Joe Biden’s campaign to slam his 2024 rival for having “parroted Adolf Hitler”.
In a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt on Friday, the former president addressed the scandal, claiming that his remarks did not stem from the former German dictator and asserting that he “is not a student of” the Nazi leader.
“First of all, I know nothing about Hitler. I’m not a student of Hitler. I never read his works,” Mr Trump said.
“They say that he said something about blood. He didn’t say it the way I said it, either, by the way. It’s a very different kind of a statement. What I’m saying when I talk about people coming into our country is they are destroying our country,” he continued.
Mr Trump also doubled down on a claim he made on stage at a rally in Iowa on Tuesday: that he has never read Mein Kampf.
While talking about immigration at the rally, Mr Trump told the crowd: “It’s crazy, what’s going on. They’re ruining our country. And it’s true. They are destroying the blood of our country.”
Despite Mr Trump’s claims he isn’t familiar with Hitler’s writings, a resurfaced 1990 Vanity Fair interview with his first wife Ivana laid out a different set of facts.
“Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed,” it reads.
During Friday’s interview, Mr Hewitt went on to ask Mr Trump: “So you intend no racist sentiment whatsoever when you say ‘poisoning our blood?’”
Donald Trump speaking at a rally— (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
“Dear, no,” the former president replied.
Despite attempting to distance himself from Hitler and the claims that the pair have shared similar statements, Mr Trump reiterated during the interview: “I have no idea what Hitler said other than I’ve seen on the news. And that’s a very entirely different thing than what I’m saying.”
He then went on to lash out at immigrants, saying: “They’re pouring, they’re destroying our country. They’re coming in from every continent, and…we have no idea who they are, what they represent.”
He then added that he wasn’t referring to a “specific group of people”.
When Mr Hewitt then asked if Mr Trump planned to rule as “an authoritarian or a dictator” if he retakes the White House, the former president insisted: “Not at all, no. I’m going to rule as somebody that’s very popular with the people.”
The streak of comparing Mr Trump to Hitler extends to last month, when Mr Trump called his political adversaries “vermin” during a New Hampshire speech.
“We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” he said.
Michael Cohen, Mr Trump’s former fixer and attorney, has poked a hole in Mr Trump’s claims of ignorance about his anti-immigration rhetoric, telling MSNBC that he “knows exactly what he’s saying.”
“He’s playing to the lowest denominator of American that exists in this country — the racist, anti-semitic animals that exist in that MAGA world,” he said.
Mr Cohen also pointed out that “two of his three wives” are immigrants.
Mr Trump’s campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung has also sought to defend Mr Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, claiming there are key differences between comments made by Hitler and those made by the former president.
He told NBC News: “President Trump made clear he was talking about the terrorists, criminals, and people from insane asylums crossing the border, which is true since individuals on the terror watchlist and members of transnational gangs have illegally crossed.”
Elsewhere in Friday’s interview, Mr Hewitt also asked the 2024 Republican frontrunner if he would peacefully transfer power if elected.
Mr Trump wildly claimed he did so in 2020 when Mr Biden won – seemingly forgetting his attempts to overturn the election result, the January 6 Capitol riot, and his federal indictment over his alleged election subversion attempts.
“Of course. And I did that this time,” he claimed.
