Republican Jewish group: Biden must apologize for comparing Trump to Goebbels
Ahead of Tuesday’s debate, Democrat likened US president to Hitler’s propagandist
The Republican Jewish Coalition on Saturday demanded an apology from Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden after he likened US President Donald Trump to the Nazi’s propaganda chief.
“He’s sort of like [Joseph] Goebbels,” Biden said of Trump. “You say the lie long enough, keep repeating it, repeating it, repeating it, it becomes common knowledge.”
In a statement, RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said: “The rule in debate is that if your only argument is to call your opponent a Nazi, you have no argument at all. Instead of engaging in a debate on policy, Joe Biden has descended to name-calling and Holocaust references.
“There is no place in political discourse for Holocaust imagery or comparing candidates to Nazis. It’s offensive and it demeans the memory of the Holocaust, the suffering of the victims, and the lessons we must learn from that terribly dark chapter of history. Joe Biden has been in politics long enough to know this. To diminish the horrors of Goebbels and the Nazis by trying to attack the president with that comparison is, as we say, a shanda.
“We call on Joe Biden to retract and apologize for that egregious comment,” said Brooks.
Biden had said he expects “personal attacks and lies” from Trump in their first televised debate on Tuesday.
“It is going to be difficult,” the former vice president acknowledged in an interview broadcast Saturday on MSNBC.
“My guess is, it’s going to be just straight attack. They’re going to be mostly personal. That’s the only thing he knows how to do,” he said of Trump.
The debate Tuesday in Cleveland, Ohio will be the first time the 77-year-old veteran politician has faced the president he has promised to unseat. The men will meet again for two more debates before the November 3 election.
But some of his supporters fear that Biden, who is prone to blunders and slip-ups, may waver in these televised duels under the rhetorical blows of the Republican billionaire — who is also prone to blunders and slip-ups, but who is far more aggressive.
“He doesn’t know how to debate the facts. He’s not that smart,” Biden also claimed. “He doesn’t know much about foreign policy, he doesn’t know much about domestic policy. He doesn’t know much about the detail.”
As a result, Biden predicted, “it’ll be mostly personal attacks and lies; but I think the American people are on to him.”
Trump himself never ceases to mock what he says is his rival’s lack of dynamism, nicknaming him “Sleepy Joe” and attacking his mental acuity.