Former president promised if re-elected to ‘root out … fascists and radical left thugs that live like vermin’ in speech on Veterans’ Day The Biden White House condemned Donald Trump for promising, if re-elected president, to “root out” opponents within US society he called “communists, Marxists, fascists and radical left thugs that live like vermin”. “Employing words like ‘vermin’ to describe anyone who makes use of their basic right to criticise the government ‘echoes dictators’ like Hitler and Mussolini,” the White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said, quoting Washington Post coverage of Trump’s remarks. “Using terms like that about dissent would be unrecognisable to our founders, but horrifyingly recognisable to American veterans who put on their country’s uniform in the 1940s. President Biden believes in his oath to our constitution, and in American democracy. He works to protect both every day.” Trump is the clear frontrunner to face Joe Biden in an election rematch next year, enjoying vast leads for the Republican nomination in battleground and national polls despite facing 91 criminal charges, including election subversion, and assorted civil trials including a defamation case arising from a rape allegation a judge said was “substantially true”. Trump leads or is close to Biden in numerous swing state polls.
via guardian: White House berates Trump for echoing Hitler by calling opponents ‘vermin’
