Fact Check: Did Donald Trump quote Hitler's ‘Mein Kampf’ in his speech? Dangerous remarks on immigrants explored

On Saturday, December 16, former U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a speech in front of a Durham, New Hampshire crowd, only a month before the state’s primary election. However, his speech has now stirred up controversy online.

“They [Biden administration] let – I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country. When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They are poisoning the blood of our country.”

Trigger Warning: This article contains mentions of inflammatory rhetoric.

As soon as Donald Trump’s latest speech became viral, people started drawing comparisons to Adolf Hitler’s 1925 manifesto Mein Kampf where he laid out many antisemitic and racist ideologies including the one where he warned German natives against the Jews and stated:

“All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning.”

The poisoning of blood part in both Hitler's and Trump’s statements has now caused a scandal, with netizens issuing a warning against the former U.S. President, calling him dangerous.

---

Donald Trump used Hitler’s rhetoric not only in his speech but also on social media

According to the now-viral video, Donald Trump said that immigrants entering the USA are “poisoning” the blood of the country. However, that’s not all he said.

“That’s what they’ve done. They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just to 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,” Trump added.

Since the footage of Trump speaking at the rally in New Hampshire emerged online, netizens pointed out that he used Adolf Hitler’s rhetoric from his white supremacy manifesto Mein Kampf where he also used the term “blood poisoning” to refer to the mixing of races, especially German blood being “poisoned” by Jewish immigrants in Nazi Germany.

Meanwhile, People also reported that Donald Trump not only made dangerous remarks surrounding immigrants during his Durham speech but later on his social media platform Truth Social where he repeated the controversial phrase saying “Illegal immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation. They are coming from prisons, from mental institutions – from all over the world.”

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Donald Trump’s original speech did not contain the disputed expression, but it was added by him impromptu on stage. Besides, the former U.S. President also praised the authoritarian rules of Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean Supreme Kim Jong Un.

In the wake of this, Trump is facing rebuke from netizens for doubling down on his dangerous, racist, and anti-immigrant remarks. Here are some of the reactions in this regard.

This is not the first time Trump has spoken against immigration in the USA recently. Earlier in December, he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity during an interview that he would briefly assume the role of a “dictator” if he wins the 2024 Presidential election and would spend his first day in office “closing the border,” ensuring mass deportation, and Muslim-ban among other things; before taking up his Presidential duties.

Similarly, in September, during an interview with The National Pulse, Donald Trump said that migrants crossing the southern border mainly escaped from prisons, mental institutions, and islands, and also tagged them as “terrorists.” Back then too, he said that immigration was “poisoning the blood” of the USA and migrants were coming in with “disease,” as reported by CBS News.

Meanwhile, Philosophy Professor Jason Stanley of Yale University, famous for writing the books How Propaganda Works and How Fascism Works told Reuters that Donald Trump’s recent Hitler verbatim may have harmful repercussions.

"Repeating dangerous speech increases its normalization and the practices it recommends. This is very concerning talk for the safety of immigrants in the U.S.," he said.

Likewise, Ammar Moussa, the campaign spokesperson for Biden-Harris told the media outlet that Trump was planning “to lock up millions of people into detention camps.” She also continued by saying:

“Tonight, Donald Trump channeled his role models as he parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un, and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for President on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy.”

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis and Trump’s GOP primary opponent called the Hitler-influenced speech a “tactical mistake,” while another Republican presidential candidate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said during Face the Nation show that Donald Trump was unfit to be the President of the USA.

It is important to note that despite facing 91 criminal charges, Donald Trump continues to be the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination and has made border security and immigration a major theme of his re-election campaign, blaming the Biden administration for the rise in illegal border crossings.