Donald Trump: ‘I never read Mein Kampf’
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Donald Trump has denied ever reading Mein Kampf as he doubled down on anti-migrant rhetoric that has been likened to Adolf Hitler’s infamous “blood and soil” propaganda.
Speaking at a rally in Iowa flanked by Christmas trees topped with Make America Great Again hats, Mr Trump defended his claims that migrants are “poisoning the blood” of America.
“It’s true. They are destroying the blood of our country,” Mr Trump said at the rally yesterday, before distancing himself from the rhetoric used by Hitler in the lead-up to the Second World War.
“They don’t like it when I said that. I never read Mein Kampf,” he added, going on to say Hitler used the language “in a much different way”.
Mr Trump added that migrants could “bring disease that is going to catch on in our country”.
Officials in Joe Biden’s administration have said that the comments – and Mr Trump’s claims that migrants were vermin – echoed Hitler.
An email from Mr Biden’s presidential campaign said: “Donald Trump is parroting autocrats like Hitler and Mussolini, claiming that immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ and calling his political enemies ‘vermin’.”
In Mein Kampf, Hilter wrote: “All great cultures of the past perished only because the original creative race died out from blood poisoning.”
‘Racist, xenophobic and despicable’
The accusations have plagued Mr Trump since a 1990 Vanity Fair article.
The article, which has resurfaced in recent days, referenced Mr Trump’s first wife Ivana Trump, who reportedly said that her husband kept a book of Hitler’s speeches in a bedside cabinet.
Despite the criticism, Mr Trump has repeated the claims on several occasions.
In September, Mr Trump also used the “poisoning the blood” language during an interview with The National Pulse, a Right-leaning website.
The comments prompted a backlash from the anti-defamation league, whose leader, Jonathan Greenblatt, called the language “racist, xenophobic and despicable”.
Mr Trump has vowed to stop illegal immigration and restrict legal immigration if elected to a second four-year term in office.
Mr Trump was in Iowa ahead of the first Republican nominating contest, which takes place in the state on Jan 15.
During the rally, Mr Trump also accused Mr Biden and the Democrats of being “willing to violate the US Constitution at levels never seen before in order to win this election”.
“Joe Biden is a threat to democracy, he’s a threat,” he continued. “They’re weaponising law enforcement for high-level election interference because we’re beating them so badly in the polls.”
