‘I never knew that Hitler said it,’ Donald Trump denies Fuhrer’s link in ‘poisoning the blood’ remarks

Former US President Donald Trump has defended his use of the words “poisoning the blood” to lament the impact of immigration on the United States, claiming he was unaware that Adolf Hitler also used it in his book ‘Mein Kampf.’

FILE – Former President Donald Trump speaks during a commit to caucus rally, (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)(AP)

Trump, who has repeatedly invoked the term in recent speeches and interviews, said he did not intend to echo the Nazi leader’s racist ideology, which claimed that Jewish blood was incompatible with German blood.

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In a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt on Friday, Trump was asked if he meant the same thing as Hitler when he used the phrase.

“No, and I never knew that Hitler said it, either, by the way,” Trump said.

“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. I never read ‘Mein Kampf,’” he added.

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‘I know nothing about Hitler’

The former president denied that he had any racist motive behind his words, saying, “Dear, no.”

“First of all, I know nothing about Hitler. I’m not a student of Hitler. I never read his works,” he continued.

“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.”

Trump insisted that he was referring to the dangers of illegal immigration, which he said was bringing in criminals, terrorists, and people from mental institutions, who were “poisoning the blood of our country.”

“They are poisoning the blood of our country,” he said.

“And I’m not talking about a specific group, and I never read ‘Mein Kampf,’ and I have no idea what Hitler said other than I’ve seen on the news. And that’s a very entirely different thing than what I’m saying. They’re pouring, they’re destroying our country. They’re coming in from every continent, and we have no idea, we have no idea who they are, what they represent. Are they from jails? Are they from prisons? And I will tell you, a big percentage of the people coming in are from prisons and from mental institutions and are terrorists. And we cannot let that … and that is poisoning our country.”

‘We are poisoning our country’

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign, confirmed that Trump was talking about “the terrorists, criminals, and people from insane asylums crossing the border, which is true since individuals on the terror watchlist and members of transnational gangs have illegally crossed.”

Trump also complained that immigration was affecting the education system, saying that children who did not speak English were filling up the classrooms. “And they’re loading up our classes. We’re loading up our classes, our school classes, with children that don’t speak the language,” he said.

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“They don’t speak our language, and nobody knows what’s going on. No, we are poisoning our country.”

Trump first used the “poisoning the blood” in an interview with The National Pulse, a conservative website, in September. He then repeated it at a rally in New Hampshire last weekend, where he faced criticism and comparisons to Hitler. However, he did not back down and used it again at another rally in Iowa a few days later.

He also posted a video statement on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, saying, “Illegal immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation. They’re coming from prisons, from mental institutions, from all over the world. Without borders and fair elections, you don’t have a country. Make America great again. We must win in 2024 or we will not have a nation. Thank you.”