Vice President Kamala Harris said on Tuesday that former US President Donald Trump’s recent xenophobic remarks on immigration have “rightly” been compared to the language of Adolf Hitler.
Trump came under fire this week after a campaign rally in New Hampshire on Saturday, where he told the crowd that immigrants are “pouring” into the US and “poisoning the blood of our country.”
In an interview with MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell on Tuesday, Harris shared her thoughts on the former president’s inflammatory remarks, especially as a child of immigrant parents.
“It is language that is meant to divide. It is language that I think people have rightly found similar to the language of Hitler,” Harris said, referencing criticisms brought up by US President Joe Biden’s campaign this week. “I think it’s just critically important that we remind each other, including our children, that the true measure of the strength of a leader is based on who they beat down, but who they lift up.”
She continued: “Sadly, I think that there’s something perverse that has happened in our country over the last many years, which is to suggest that strength looks like a bully when in fact, the real character of a leader is someone who has empathy, who has some level of concern and care for the suffering of other people and then does something to alleviate that suffering.”
Harris also reflected on what her late mother — an immigrant who was active during the Civil Rights Movement — would have said in response to Trump’s comments: “There’s no question in my mind that her response to that kind of language would be … We’ve seen this before, we know where this could go, so stand up and fight for what is right.”
Trump’s comments from Saturday faced scrutiny this week by political figures.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (Republican) described Trump as “disgusting” to CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday, adding that “what he’s doing is dog-whistling to Americans who feel absolutely under stress and strain from the economy and from the conflicts around the world. And he’s dog-whistling to blame it on people from areas that don’t look like us.”
Biden’s campaign also slammed Trump for his comments for “parroting Hitler,” specifically a phrase used in the Nazi leader’s manifesto, Mein Kampf.
