Trump, again, praises dictators and rails against immigrants -- again sparking backlash
Trump, again, praises dictators and rails against immigrants -- again sparking backlashBiden and Christie quickly condemned the comments.
By Lalee Ibssa , Soo Rin Kim, Libby Cathey, and Gabriella Abdul-Hakim
December 17, 2023, 3:54 PM
With less than a month to go until the Iowa caucuses, candidates are hitting the tr...Show More
With less than a month until the first votes are cast in the 2024 Republican primary, former President Donald Trump spent his latest rally in New Hampshire praising multiple authoritarian leaders and quoting Russian President Vladimir Putin to try and discredit the criminal indictments against him -- while sparking new backlash from critics that his anti-immigrant sentiment echoes Adolf Hitler.
"They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done," Trump said Saturday in Durham, New Hampshire. "They're coming into our country, from Africa, from Asia, over the world. They're pouring into our country."
The former president, again, praised authoritarian leaders including Hungary's Viktor Orban, China's Xi Jinping and North Korea's Kim Jong Un -- and called President Joe Biden a "threat to democracy," reversing a frequent attack of Biden on him.
Trump went on to quote Russia's president when calling the criminal cases pending against him "politically motivated." Prosecutors have rejected that accusation and defended their work.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to the 91 charges he faces across four cases in three states and Washington, D.C.
"Putin of Russia says that Biden's, and this is a quote, 'politically motivated persecution of his political rival' is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy,'" Trump said at the rally. "So we talk about democracy, but the whole world is watching the persecution of a political opponent that's kicking his ass."
The Biden campaign quickly seized on the comments, blasting the former president in a rapid response email on Saturday night, saying Trump "channeled his role models as he parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un, and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for president on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy." |
