Former President Donald Trump recently insisted that he is “not a student of Hitler” during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Friday, but doubled down on his controversial assertion that illegal immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” via Mediaite.
“Mr. President, you’ve also said immigrants are- illegal immigrants are poisoning our blood. What do you mean by that?” asked Hewitt.
“When you look at it and you look at what’s coming in, we have from all over the world, not one group. They’re coming in from Asia, from Africa, from South America. They’re coming from all over the world. They’re coming from prisons, they’re coming from mental institutions, and insane asylums. They’re terrorists, absolutely. That’s poisoning our country. That’s poisoning the blood of our country. And that’s what’s happening,” answered Trump.
He continued:
And we’re not talking about a specific group. We’re talking about, these are, this is equal opportunity. They’re coming from all over the world. And we have no idea who they are, where they are. They have people coming in. We don’t even know what the languages that they speak. We have nobody that speaks the language and they are loading up our classes. We’re loading up our classes, our school classes with children that don’t speak the language, they don’t speak our language. And nobody knows what’s going on. Now, we are poisoning our country. We’re poisoning the blood of our country. We have people coming in. Think of it, mental institutions all over the world are being emptied out into the United States. Jails and prisons are being emptied out into the United States.
The conversation proceeded apace:
HEWITT: Mr. President, your critics say that you are using Hitlerian language that was used to dehumanize Jews by saying that Jewish blood cannot be part of German blood. Do you have anything like that in mind when you say poisoning our blood?
TRUMP: No. And I never knew that Hitler said it either, by the way. And I never read Mein Kampf. They said I read Mein Kampf. These are people that are disinformation, horrible people that we’re dealing with.
HEWITT: So you intend no racist sentiment whatsoever when you say poisoning our blood? My recommendation would be say-
TRUMP: If look at the polls, if you look at the polls, I’m doing incredibly with African-American, I’m doing incredibly with Hispanic, the highest numbers that anyone’s ever seen for a Republican candidate, and the reason is they know me. Look what I’ve done. Criminal justice reform. Colleges, I got the colleges and universities, black colleges and universities funded. Nobody else did that. I’ve done so much opportunity zones with Tim Scott, I got that done. Nobody ever thought that would happen. And by the way, it’s one of the most incredible programs that nobody ever talks about now.
HEWITT: So you mean nothing racist by that? Because your critics keep saying, ‘Oh, he wants to be Hitler. He’s talking about poisoning our blood. He’s trying to be a Nazi.’ How do you respond to these people?
TRUMP: First of all, I know nothing about Hitler. I’m not a student of Hitler. I never read his works. They say that he said something about blood. He didn’t say it the way I said it either, by the way. It’s a very different kind of a statement. What I’m saying when I talk about people coming into our country is they are destroying our country. This country is- we have prisoners coming in. We have mental patients coming in by the thousands, really by the millions. Because you take a look. I believe the number will be 15 million people, maybe more than that by the time this lunatic leaves office.
