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Republican
presidential nominee former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign
rally at McCamish Pavilion, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., October 28, 2024.
REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
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Brendan |
Donald Trump on Monday told supporters in
Georgia he is “the opposite of a Nazi,” as he responded to comparisons of his
Sunday rally at Madison Square
Garden to a 1939 pro-Nazi gathering at the same venue.
The
former president also sought to turn criticism of his rally into a flashpoint
for all Trump supporters by falsely claiming Vice President Kamala Harris is
calling those who cast their ballots 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 that his
Democratic rival has not actually said.
Harris
pounced 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. That report was substantiated by retired Marine Gen.
John Kelly, Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, who separately told The
New York Times that Trump fit the definition of a fascist.
Harris
responded to saying she thinks Trump is a fascist and that “the people who know
him best on this subject should be trusted.” Her campaign has also used The
Atlantic’s report and Kelly’s remarks in advertisements in recent days.
Trump
seemed to be responding to those comments Monday night in Georgia, when he said
his father had urged him never to describe people as Nazis or Hitler.
“He
used to always say: ‘Never use the word Nazi. Never use that word.’ And he’d
say: ‘Never use the word Hitler. Don’t use that word,’” Trump said.
Referring
to Democrats, Trump added: “They use that word — really, 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 Harris calling him a fascist by saying, “She’s a fascist, OK?
She’s a fascist.”
Trump’s
description of Harris 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 it could lead to violence.
The
attacks on Harris come amid the political
fallout of Trump’s Sunday rally at the iconic Madison Square
Garden, where a comedian opening
for the former president called Puerto Rico a “floating island
of garbage” — a comment that drew widespread condemnation and triggered
backlash among a fast-growing Latino group in Pennsylvania.
Harris
on Monday told reporters the incendiary remarks at the Trump rally at Madison
Square Garden were “not new” for a former president who regularly uses violent
rhetoric targeting undocumented immigrants.
“It
is just more of the same, and maybe more vivid, than usual,” Harris said.
“Donald Trump spends full time trying to have Americans point their finger at
each other. He fans the fuel of hate and division, and that’s why people are
exhausted with him.”
Harris
has not called Trump, or his supporters, Nazis. However, her running mate,
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, on Sunday said there was “a direct parallel” between
Trump’s wild Madison Square Garden rally and the notorious 1939 gathering of
Nazi supporters at the landmark arena in New York City.
“And
don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing
there,” Walz said.
Trump’s
running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, complained Monday about that comparison.
“They
decided to compare us to literal Nazis for gathering in Madison Square Garden
and celebrating the United States of America. These are the same people, of
course, who call us racist for wanting to secure the southern border. They’re
the same people who have no plans, no ideas and no solutions. All they have is
hatred of their fellow citizens,” Vance said at a campaign stop in Wisconsin.
Later,
at another event, Vance argued that the values of American soldiers who stormed
the beaches of Normandy to fight Nazi Germany in World War II are far from the
policies Harris supports.
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