Donald Trump claimed Friday that his recent comments about immigrants “poisoning the blood” of the U.S. weren’t inspired by similar statements made by Adolf Hitler about Jewish people, saying he’s merely ignorant to the specifics of Hitler’s hateful rhetoric.
To drive home his point, Trump insisted in an interview with the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he really doesn’t “know anything about Hitler.”
“I’m not a student of Hitler,” Trump said, defending his comments. “I never read his works. 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.”
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When Hewitt pressed Trump about his rhetoric, Trump insisted again that immigrants are poisoning the blood of Americans.
“They’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums,” Trump said of immigrants. “They’re terrorists, absolutely, that’s poisoning our country, that’s poisoning the blood of our country.”
Later in that rant, after complaining about immigrant children going to U.S. schools without having learned English already, Trump said again, “We are poisoning our country; we’re poisoning the blood of our country.”
Hewitt informed Trump that Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that German blood was being poisoned by Jews, and suggested that his comments didn’t sound all that different from the Nazi leader.
Trump said he didn’t mean any racist sentiment with his “poisoning the blood” comments, and insisted he’s “doing incredibly” with Black and Hispanic voters.
Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter who covered the Trump administration, wrote in her book Confidence Man that Trump was once given a copy of the book My New Order, which is filled with Hitler speeches, by a friend. It’s unclear if Trump ever read the book, however.
Some Trump supporters have defended his poisoning comments by claiming they simply refer to the way drugs from Latin America are killing Americans.
Democrats have honed in on the rhetoric, suggesting Trump wants to be an authoritarian like Hitler. In a statement to The Daily Beast, a White House spokesperson said that Trump’s blood poisoning comments were “abhorrent” and “dangerous.”
In his interview with Hewitt, Trump said “poisoning” eight times, showing he has no intentions of shying away from the rhetoric.
Hewitt gave Trump a final chance to clarify his intentions with the poisoning comments, saying to him: “The most controversial thing you’ve said is the illegal immigrants are poisoning our blood. Will you explain again what do you mean by that?”
Trump responded bluntly: “Exactly what I said.”
