Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell cited his own wife while pushing back against former President Donald Trump's remarks claiming that migrants are "poisoning the blood" of Americans.
Trump was accused of echoing Nazi leader Adolf Hitler by asserting that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country" during a campaign rally speech in New Hampshire on Saturday.
In the 1925 book Mein Kampf, Hitler similarly argued that "all great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning" by Jews and others that Nazis considered undesirable.
McConnell responded to Trump's remarks after being asked during a press conference in Washington on Tuesday whether he was "comfortable" with the ex-president, the leading 2024 GOP presidential candidate, using the "blood poisoning" rhetoric.
The Senate leader then pointed out that Trump was seemingly unconcerned about the supposed poison while appointing his wife Elaine Chao, a Taiwanese immigrant, as secretary of transportation in 2017.
"Well, it strikes me that it didn't bother him when he appointed Elaine Chao secretary of transportation," McConnell said.
Newsweek reached out for comment to Trump's office via email on Tuesday evening.
Both McConnell and Chao, who resigned from the Trump administration shortly after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, have been frequent targets of the former president's verbal attacks.
Trump often refers to Chao as "Coco Chow." Chao has called the moniker a "racist taunt" that Trump is using to "trying to get a rise out of" her, while noting that "some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced my name" when she was young.
The former president also faced criticism after pledging to "root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country" last month. Hitler similarly promised to "get rid of the 'communist' 'vermin'" prior to his rise to power in 1930s Germany.
Ivana Trump, the former president's deceased ex-wife, claimed in a resurfaced 1990 Vanity Fair interview that the future president kept a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order, at his bedside.
She said that at least one Trump Organization employee would greet Trump with a click of the heels and an audible "Heil Hitler," although she stressed that the greeting might have been made as a "family joke."
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung previously told Newsweek that comparing his employer with Hitler was a "ridiculous assertion" caused by "Trump Derangement Syndrome." Cheung predicted that the "sad, miserable existence" of those who do so would "be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House."
The former president also recently faced backlash for vowing to become a "dictator" on "day one" after being asked what his plans would be if he wins the 2024 election," although some Trump supporters appeared to welcome the idea.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Aila Slisco is a Newsweek night reporter based in New York. Her focus is on reporting national politics, where she ... Read more
