By Doina Chiacu
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate donald trump accused Democratic rival president Joe Biden of running a “Gestapo administration” in a private speech to donors in which he also attacked prosecutors involved in his criminal charges, according to a recording heard by US media.
Trump, whose own rhetoric has drawn accusations of fascist tendencies from civil rights groups and other critics, drew the comparison to Nazi police in the Second World War German regime at a donor retreat Saturday night at his Mar-a resort. -Lake, in Palm Beach. Florida.
The comments came after Trump reprized his claim that the multiple charges against him were politically motivated. He had just completed 11 days of a secret trial in New York in which he is accused of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment made to a porn star.
“These people run a Gestapo administration,” Trump said, according to an audio recording heard by the New York Times and the Washington Post. “And it’s the only thing they have. And it’s the only way they can win, in their opinion, and it’s killing them. But it doesn’t bother me.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the reported comments.
The former president, who held office from 2017 to 2021, faces a series of legal problems in criminal and civil proceedings as he tries to regain the presidency in the November 5 elections. He denies wrongdoing in all cases.
Trump made a series of inflammatory and racist statements during the campaign, using violent images to criticize immigrants and opponents. He warned of violence if he does not win the 2024 elections and compared immigrants to animals.
In November, Biden attacked Trump for using the word “worm” to refer to his political enemies, saying it echoed the language of Nazi Germany. Also last year, Trump said immigrants entering the country illegally were “poisoning the blood of our country.”
Some historians say such comments reflect those of autocrats who sought to dehumanize their enemies. Trump’s campaign has already rejected comparisons with the Nazis, Adolf Hitler and Italian Benito Mussolini.
Biden’s campaign said the reported comments underscore the Republican candidate’s anger and desire for revenge.
“Trump is once again making despicable and insulting comments about the Holocaust while attacking law enforcement, celebrating political violence and threatening our democracy,” spokesman James Singer said in a statement.
On Saturday night, Trump used profanity to refer to U.S. Special Attorney Jack Smith, according to reports, and mocked Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, who is prosecuting a state election interference case.
Smith, a frequent target of Trump, is the prosecutor handling federal cases involving efforts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss to Biden and the former president’s handling of classified government material.
Trump, a former New York businessman and reality television host, described Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug traffickers when declaring his candidacy for the Republican nomination in the 2016 election. He drew widespread criticism after a violent 2017 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, for equating white supremacists with counterprotesters and saying “both sides” were to blame.
Biden said the events in Charlottesville, where a woman was killed, motivated him to run for president against Trump in 2020.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; editing by Andrea Ricci)
