Top Democrat Calls Donald Trump A Racist, Warns America Could ‘Go The Way Of Germany In The 1930s’
A top congressional Democrat is calling President Donald Trump a racist and warning that modern-day America could become like Germany during the rise of the Nazi Party.
James Clyburn, a South Carolina congressman who serves as House Majority Whip, made the comments about Trump during an interview with Axios on HBO, which was released on Sunday. Clyburn compared Trump’s attacks on members of the press to the clampdown on the free press that took place under Adolf Hitler in Germany.
“I used to wonder how could the people of Germany allow Hitler to exist. But with each passing day, I’m beginning to understand how. And that’s why I’m trying to sound the alarm,” Clyburn said, accusing Trump of telling a series of lies during the State of the Union address. “Fully half of those lies, the Republican side of the House stood up and cheered they knew that was not true. But they cheered him on.”
Clyburn continued the comparison, saying that the German people knew Hitler was lying as well, just as Americans know Trump is lying.
The South Carolina Democrat also said he believed Trump is a racist. While he did not say Trump was a white supremacist, Clyburn said be believed there were white supremacists living in the White House. As Axios noted, Clyburn did not name a specific person with that accusation.
Clyburn has played an important role in the Democratic primary. His late endorsement of Joe Biden in the days before the South Carolina primary is being credited as helping the former vice president with a larger-than-expected win there. Though Biden came into that primary trailing Bernie Sanders both in delegates and in polling, it sparked an abrupt turnaround for Biden as he went on to win a series of Super Tuesday elections just three days later, taking control of the contest.
This is not the first time that a top Democrat has caused a stir with an accusation that Trump is a racist. Last year, after Trump wrote a series of reportedly racially-charged tweets attacking Democratic congresswomen of color, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi explicitly called the president’s words “racist” in remarks on the House floor. As Politico reported, that led to objections from Republicans in an attempt to rule the remarks out of order and have them stricken from the congressional record.
The White House had not yet responded to Clyburn’s accusation that Trump is racist.
