An interview with Donald Trump's ex-wife, Ivana Trump, in which she said he received a Nazi salute, resurfaced as the former president faces backlash over his latest immigration remarks.
The former president, who remains the front-runner to win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and whose anti-immigration policies have been a cornerstone of his political career, has come under fire after claiming immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of the United States during a campaign event in Durham, New Hampshire, on Saturday.
"They're poisoning the blood of our country," he said. "They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America, not just in three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world."
The remarks sparked an avalanche of criticism, with many comparing his rhetoric to that used in Nazi Germany. President Joe Biden's campaign accused him of parroting Adolf Hitler. Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung previously told Newsweek that the former president "gave a great speech and knocked it out of the park in front of over 10,000 people who came out to see him."
Following the remarks, several allegations made by Ivana Trump in a 1990 Vanity Fair article titled After the Gold Rush resurfaced. The article, written by Marie Brenner, was published amid the couple's divorce following his affair with Marla Maples. Ivana died on July 14, 2022.
"Donald Trump appears to take aspects of his German background seriously. John Walter works for the Trump Organization, and when he visits Donald in his office, Ivana told a friend, he clicks his heels and says, 'Heil Hitler,' possibly as a family joke," the article reads.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign via email for comment.
She also alleged that Trump would read a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order, and that he kept the book by his bed. Brenner asked Trump about the allegation, and he said a friend gave him the book.
"'Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he's a Jew,'" Donald Trump said, according to the article. "'(I did give him a book about Hitler,' Marty Davis said. 'But it was My New Order, Hitler's speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I'm not Jewish,')" the article reads.
Donald Trump added: "If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them."
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Andrew Stanton is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in Maine. His role is reporting on U.S. politics and social issues. ... Read more
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