Bill Maher: Trump a 'little Hitler-adjacent'

Political talk show host says presidential candidate ‘stirring up xenophobic hate among an angry, humiliated population’

Political talk show host Bill Maher likened Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler on Friday, after the billionaire failed to correct a man who said President Obama was Muslim.

On Thursday, Trump declined to correct a questioner’s incorrect statement about the president at a town hall event and said he’d be “looking at” a claim that terrorists run training camps on American soil.

“Did you see what happened yesterday? Trump was taking questions at his Klan rally in New Hampshire, and he learned a very important lesson: Never give a microphone to a man who thinks Donald Trump should be president!” Maher said on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

Maher also poked fun at claims Obama was setting up “reeducation” camps on US soil and said the US president ought to do so — for Tea Party supporters.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a town hall event Thursday, Sept. 17, 2015, in Rochester, New Hampshire. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

“This guy got up there, and he said, ‘Obama’s a Muslim, birth certificate man, and the Muslims have training camps here ready to kill us, what you gonna do about it?’ You know, there’s been a pet conspiracy theory among the Teabaggers for a long time that Obama is setting up reeducation camps. I’d like to say tonight: I think he should. Really. We need reeducation camps,” Maher said.

Maher then said that while he tends to avoid any comparisons to the Nazi dictator, Trump was somewhat reminiscent of Hitler.

“Because I try to resist comparisons to Hitler, because there’s only one Hitler — he broke them all — but, you know what? If you’re stirring up xenophobic hate among an angry, humiliated population and talking about rounding up minorities, it’s a little Hitler-adjacent,” Maher said.

Three weeks ago, Maher took aim at Trump’s rhetoric against China. “That’s the way Hitler talked about the Jews,” he said.