Beto O’Rourke compares Trump’s immigrant rhetoric to Third Reich

Democratic presidential candidate decries US president who ‘not only describes immigrants as rapists and criminals but as animals and an infestation’

By Alexandra Jaffe 5 April 2019, 9:12 am Edit

Presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke speaks during a gathering of the National Action Network on April 3, 2019 in New York. (Don Emmert / AFP)

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke has compared the rhetoric used by President Donald Trump to describe immigrants to the rhetoric used in Nazi Germany.

At a town hall in Iowa on Thursday, O’Rourke called out “the rhetoric of a president who not only describes immigrants as rapists and criminals but as animals and an infestation,” in response to a question on how he would address attacks from Republicans.

The former congressman from Texas said, “Now, I might expect someone to describe another human being as an infestation in the Third Reich. I would not expect that in the United States of America.”

O’Rourke says he will avoid using similar rhetoric because “if we descend into that pettiness and meanness and those personal attacks, I’m not sure that we can win.”

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.