House Republican leaders defended Donald Trump on Sunday when confronted about the former president's rhetoric surrounding immigration, which critics have equated to "parroting" Adolf Hitler.
Republicans in Congress have been fighting for strengthened security at the southern border with Mexico amid a large surge of undocumented immigrants entering the country. In the 2023 fiscal year, which ended in September, U.S. Border Patrol had 3.2 million encounters with undocumented immigrants, according to agency data.
Trump successfully ran for president in 2016 with the promise to build a wall along the entire southern border to keep migrants out—a promise that did not come to fruition. Now, as the GOP front-runner in the 2024 presidential election, Trump has once again called to close the U.S.-Mexico border with critics comparing his rhetoric to that of the dictator Adolf Hitler from Nazi Germany in the 20th century.
The former president has long degraded migrants, calling them "rapists and murderers and drug dealers." But now, he has repeatedly said that they are "poisoning the blood of our country." Hitler was quoted saying that "Jews and migrants are poisoning Aryan blood," to justify the genocide of millions of Jews during the Holocaust.
Trump said in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in December that he "never knew that Hitler said it" when asked if he used the term "poisoning the blood" in the same way Hitler meant it. The former president said, "I know nothing about Hitler," adding that his comments about migrants is "a very different kind of statement" from Hitler's remarks.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign via email for comment.
On CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday, host Margaret Brennan asked House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, "When President Trump says immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country, is that a statement you agree with?"
Johnson, a staunch Trump supporter, replied: "That's not language I would use, but I understand the urgency of President Trump's admonition. He's been saying this since he ran for president the first time, that we have to secure the border and I think the vast majority of the American people understand the necessity of that and I think they agree with his position."
The congressman added that Trump's rhetoric is "not hateful" and said that the former president simply wants to "advance his America first priority."
Johnson then turned attention away from Trump and onto President Joe Biden.
"The current president, President Biden, wants additional supplemental spending on national security, but he denies the most important point of our own national security, and that is our own border ... President Biden's position is frustrating to us, it's frustrating to the American people, and certainly to President Trump and I think that's what he's articulating there," the congressman said.
Meanwhile, the 4th ranking House Republican, Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, who has chaired the House Republican Conference since 2021, defended Trump's "poisoning the blood" comments.
Kristen Welker, host of NBC's Meet the Press, asked Stefanik on Sunday, "He referred to migrants as, 'poisoning the blood of our country.' This is language that the Biden campaign, others, says, 'is parroting Adolf Hitler.' Are you comfortable with former President Trump's comments?"
Stefanik, who is also a close Trump ally, responded: "Well, yet again, we have the media which is so biased, which is reiterating whatever the talking points the Biden campaign is giving ... Our border crisis is poisoning American through fentanyl. It is poisoning people, including in my district who are dying from overdoses of fentanyl, and you know why, because of Joe Biden's wide open border—executive actions that he took on day one. So yes, I stand by President Trump."
Welker then interrupted, "And his words?" To which Stefanik replied, "Yes."
Newsweek reached out to Johnson, Stefanik, and Biden's campaign via email for comment.
Meanwhile, Biden has admitted that fixing America's immigration system is "a difficult challenge," but put the blame on the Republicans for not working with him to solve it.
He said in Washington on Friday, "On my first day in office...I sent Congress a comprehensive piece of legislation that would completely overhaul what has been a broken immigration system for a long time...but congressional Republicans have refused to consider my comprehensive plan.
"And they rejected my recent request for an additional $3.5 billion to secure the border and funds for 2,000 new asylum personnel, another — asylum officers and personnel — and 100 new immigration judges so people don't have to wait years to get their claims adjudicated, which they have a right to make a claim legally," the president said.
Republicans have repeatedly attacked Biden and Democrats on immigration, accusing them of making the situation at the border worse with their policies.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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