ABC News – By Soo Rin Kim and Lalee Ibssa – Former President Donald Trump vowed this weekend to “root out” his political opponents, who he said “live like vermin” as he warned supporters that America’s greatest threats come “from within” — extreme rhetoric that echoes the words of fascist dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, experts and Trump’s critics said.
A Trump campaign spokesman dismissed the backlash to his speech, at a Veterans Day rally in New Hampshire, but some historians said the parallels were alarming.
“To call your opponent ‘vermin,’ to dehumanize them, is to not only open the door but to walk through the door toward the most ghastly kinds of crimes,” writer and historian Jon Meacham said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
Speaking to a packed crowd inside Stevens High School auditorium in Claremont, New Hampshire, on Saturday, Trump, who is seeking a second term in the White House, said: “We will put America first and today, especially in honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”