Trump Dismisses Comparisons to Hitler
Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump on Tuesday brushed off recent comparisons to Adolf Hitler as he doubled down on his call to bar the entry of all foreign Muslims into the United States.
“You’re increasingly being compared to Hitler. Doesn’t that give you any pause at all?” George Stephanopoulos asked the Trump during a phone call interview on “Good Morning America” Tuesday morning.
“No,” he responded. “What I’m doing is no different from FDR.”
On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Daily News’ featured a photo of Trump in a look-alike Hitler salute with the headline “The New Furor.” Times of Israel also features a picture of a look-alike Nazi salute Trump at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s Presidential Forum last Thursday in what seems to be a shot of the candidate raising his hands to wave to the crowd.
Careful photo selection by @TimesofIsrael. h/t Josh Abraham pic.twitter.com/0X06s2xqOr
— Stu Loeser (@stuloeser) December 8, 2015
Today’s cover of the @PhillyDailyNews. THE NEW FUROR: @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/nDI3oj2RHg
— Michael Skolnik (@MichaelSkolnik) December 8, 2015
The comparison to Hitler came after Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
In his interview on ABC News, Trump explained that his proposal is no different than “FDR’s solution for Germans, Italians, Japanese many years ago” during WWII. “This was a president that was highly respected by all,” said Trump. “He did the same thing. If you look at what he was doing, it was far worse.”
In an interview on CNN’s “Good Day” morning program, Trump dismissed the Philly paper’s cover as an attack from another newspaper “that’s going out of business.”
Republican presidential candidate Lindsey Graham condemned Trump’s recent comments, saying he brings out a “dark side” of U.S. politics.
“Of all the people in America who understand what it’s like to be singled out, based on your faith, it’s the Jewish Americans. He’s bringing up a dark side of American politics,” Graham told Jewish Insider in an interview Monday night. “Mr. Trump is making it harder on the war effort, he’s empowering the enemy, and of all the people on the planet who understand religious bigotry it’s the Jewish community and what Mr. Trump is doing is putting our nation at risk, undermining the war effort and empowering our enemy.”
Recently, a top Jeb Bush political donor Mike Fernandez took out a full-page newspaper ad comparing Trump to some of the history’s most notorious dictators, including Hitler and Benito Mussolini. On Sunday, Bush distanced himself from the ad’s content. “Donald Trump is also making some of your biggest supporters quite angry,” George Stephanopoulos asked Bush in an interview on ABC News’ “This Week” program. “Mike Fernandez, [the] biggest single supporter to your super PAC, is taking out full-page ads right now, where he compares Trump, suggesting that he’s — that he’s like Mussolini and Hitler. Do you think that’s appropriate?”
“No, I don’t,” Bush said.