The Biden White House pushed back on Donald Trump‘s use of the term “vermin” to describe his political opponents, claiming the former president echoed fascist dictators.
In a Veterans Day speech, Trump vowed to, if he wins the presidency in 2024, “root out … radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”
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“The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within,” he continued.
The White House responded to Trump’s speech by noting that the administration will not comment on the 2024 election, but spokesman Andrew Bates cautioned against Trump’s rhetoric in a statement.
“The nation just observed Veterans Day, recognizing the sacred memory of every American who risked their lives to defend our freedom. Veterans who are absolutely not ‘suckers’ or ‘losers’ but who, as President Biden has said, deserve our greatest respect,” he wrote. “Suspending the Constitution would gut the protection of freedom that defines our country, and for which so many brave service members sacrificed everything.”
Bates claimed that such an “abuse of power” would jeopardize “the rights of all Americans” and pointed to reporting from the Washington Post that likened Trump’s comments to those of dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
“Using terms like that about dissent would be unrecognizable to our founders, but horrifyingly recognizable to American veterans who put on their country’s uniform in the 1940s,” Bates concluded. “President Biden believes in his oath to our Constitution, and in American democracy. He works to protect both every day.”
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Biden’s reelection campaign piled on, saying Trump’s remarks show he “doesn’t care” about the troops.
“On a weekend when most Americans were honoring our nation’s heroes, Donald Trump parroted the autocratic language of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini — two dictators many U.S. veterans gave their lives fighting, in order to defeat exactly the kind of un-American ideas Trump now champions,” said Ammar Moussa, a Biden-Harris 2024 spokesman.
