Former President Donald Trump declared he is “the opposite of a Nazi” and received a stark reminder on social media of how he was once referred to by his own running mate, JD Vance.
“I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi,” Trump claimed at a rally in Atlanta, Georgia, on Monday, amid making baseless claims that Democratic rival Kamala Harris is calling him and anyone who votes for him “Nazis.”
Trump also said his late father, Fred Trump, would tell him never to say the word Nazi or refer to the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
The Republicans Against Trump group shared footage of the comments online:
Critics, however, pointed out how now-Republican vice presidential candidate Vance warned in 2016 that Trump, whose authoritarian rhetoric has escalated in recent weeks, could one day become “America’s Hitler.”
“I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler,” Vance wrote at the time in a private message to a former Yale Law School roommate, the now-Democratic Georgia state Senator Josh McLaurin.
Of course, Vance has since performed an astonishing 180 to become Trump’s No. 2 in the 2024 election.
Last week, Trump’s White House chief of staff, John Kelly, said Trump had praised Hitler to him and is a “fascist.”