Fact Check: Is Donald Trump, Adolf Hitler Viral Quote Comparison Accurate?

Donald Trump's speech on Veterans Day, during which he called left-wing political groups "vermin," has prompted comparisons between the former president and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

Trump, the Republican primary front-runner, has attracted criticism from across the political spectrum, with former Republican Representative Liz Cheney decrying his comments as akin to "Nazi propaganda."

One viral social media post attempted to demonstrate the similarity explicitly, positioning Trump's words next to quotes and paraphrased statements attributed to Hitler.

Newsweek has contacted Trump's media representatives via email for comment.

The Claim

A post on X, formerly Twitter, by left-leaning commentators MeidasTouch, posted on November 13, 2023, and viewed 1.8 million times, stated: "This is not merely a coincidence.

"It is deliberate.

"We must not sit idly by as fascism rears its ugly head in America.

"Share this image far and wide so everyone you know understands the stakes of the 2024 election."

The post included a list of quotes and statements attributed to Hitler and Trump, side-by-side, with the heading "TRUMP ECHOES HITLER'S WORDS ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL."

The statements attributed to Trump were: "I will get rid of the 'communist' 'vermin'," "I will take care of the 'threat from within'," "Migrants are 'poisoning the blood of our country'", and "'One people, one family, one glorious nation."

Hitler's statements were: "I will get rid of the 'communist' 'vermin'," "I will take care of the 'enemy within'," "Jews and migrants are poisoning Aryan blood," and "One people, one realm, one leader."

The Facts

Newsweek has examined the context of these statements to judge the comparison's fairness and accuracy.

"Communist...vermin"

During the speech in Claremont, New Hampshire, Trump attacked multiple political groups, including communists, saying: "On Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections."

"They'll do anything whether legally or illegally to destroy America and to destroy the American dream."

The former president repeated some of these words in a Truth Social post on November 11, which read: "In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran's Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream.

"The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within. Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our Country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN."

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough accused Trump on Monday of going "full-on Hitler" by using such rhetoric. In response to the criticism, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told Newsweek earlier this week: "Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their sad, miserable existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House."

Communists were banned from political office during Hitler's rule and imprisoned in concentration camps.

Following an arson attack at the German Reichstag in 1933, Hitler said: "This is a God-given signal. If this fire, as I believe, is the work of the Communists, then we must crush out this murderous pest with an iron fist."

While Newsweek was unable to find a verifiable direct quote that referred to communists as "vermin", the term was used by Hitler to describe communities and races he detested. In the acclaimed biography Hitler by Joachim Fest, he was quoted in 1942 referring to "inferior" races as "vermin."

"Nature is cruel; therefore we are also entitled to be cruel," he said.

"When I send the flower of German youth into the steel hail of the next war without feeling the slightest regret over the precious German blood that is being spilled, should I not also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin?"

The presence of and threats to Communists in German politics was, of course, greater than exists in the U.S. today.

"Threat From Within"

At the New Hampshire rally, Trump said: "The real threat is not from the radical right. The real threat is from the radical left and it's growing every day, every single day.

"The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within."

Again, Trump repeated a similar message in his Truth Social post on November 11, writing: "The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within."

The Nazi persecution of Jewish populations was supported by propagandists who promoted the notion of removing "the enemy within." The purge and murder of political dissidents and opponents throughout Nazi-occupied Europe demonstrated the party's belief that its enemies existed both within and outside German society.

Hitler has been quoted using this phrase, although not the exact quote shared by MeidasTouch. The New Penguin Dictionary of Modern Quotations quotes Hitler speaking at the Berlin Sportspalast on January 30, 1941, saying: "Those nations who are still opposed to us will some day recognize the greater enemy within."

"They will join us in a combined front, a front against Jewish exploitation and racial degeneration." A similar translation of the same speech, provided by the Jewish Virtual Library, quotes Hitler describing "Jewish-International exploitation" as the "greater inner enemy."

"Poisoning the Blood of Our Country"

Trump made this statement in late September 2023, during an interview with Raheem Kassam, editor-in-chief of conservative media site The National Pulse.

During a conversation about immigration, Trump said: "I think you could go to the, uh, you could go to a banana republic, and pick the worst one, and you're not going to see what we're witnessing now.

"No control whatsoever, nobody has any idea where these people are coming from, and we know they come from prisons, we know they come from mental institutions, insane asylums, we know they're terrorists.

"Nobody has ever seen anything like we're witnessing right now, it is a very sad thing for our country.

"It's poisoning the blood of our country, it's so bad and people are coming in with disease, people are coming in with every possible thing that you can have..."

In Hitler's infamous tome, Mein Kampf, he refers to "blood poisoning" in the context of the intermingling and growth of Jewish communities within society, also arguing that "great cultures" died off because of "blood poisoning" caused by foreign nations.

The notion of a "mass poisoning" of wider society is also mentioned, used to describe how the "liberal" and "Marxist" press "lie" to serve the interests of "international capital and its masters, the Jews."

Hitler is far more detailed in his concept of "blood poisoning" compared to what Trump said.

"One People, One Family, One Glorious Nation"

This quote is also not from Trump's New Hampshire rally. It's a truncated version of something he said during his presidency and his 2020 campaign for re-election.

During the 2018 midterms, Trump told a crowd in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, that "We are one people, one family and one glorious nation under God." The same quote was included alongside campaign messaging on Facebook in 2019 and 2020.

Truncating Trump's quote to "...One Glorious Nation..." misses Trump's clear invocation of the Pledge of Allegiance, as in "One Nation Under God."

The slogan "One People, One Realm, One Leader" was widely used in Nazi propaganda from 1933-1945. The slogan, which in German reads "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer!", appeared alongside a painting of Hitler on posters spread throughout Germany during the Third Reich.

While Newsweek was unable to find this slogan directly quoted by Hitler, its use in Nazi propaganda indicates his tacit endorsement of that sentiment.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum states Hitler approved the image, helping to portray "the living embodiment of the German nation and people."

"This slogan reinforced the cult of Hitler and the sense of destiny that the Party claimed made him the savior of Germany and father of the German people."

It's not the only time in recent memory that a politician has used a slogan like this. Earlier this year, the Russian government held an event in Red Square marking the first anniversary of its self-proclaimed annexation of Ukraine's Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions. The event was reportedly bannered under the slogan "One Country, One Family, One Russia."

President Joe Biden's re-election team was among those who criticized Trump's speech in New Hampshire on Veterans Day, saying Trump had "parroted the autocratic language of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini—two dictators many U.S. veterans gave their lives fighting."

While Trump has been compared to the German leader before, he is not the only politician to have faced the comparison.

In February 2023, former Democratic Hawaiian Representative Tulsi Gabbard argued that Joe Biden's White House cabinet had been picked "based on race," adding "Let's be clear about how serious of a problem this is. It's based on genetics, race, based on your blood, your genes, and where do we see that connection?"

Speaking to Fox News' Jesse Watters, Gabbard said: "Well, these are the very same geneticist core principles embodied by Nazism and Adolf Hitler."

The Ruling

Needs Context.

Trump's and Hitler's statements are not quite the same, and there is obvious, significant context that separates these sets of quotes.

However, it is true that phrases and statements used by Trump, like "vermin," "poisoning the blood," and "threat from within," bear a remarkable similarity to some quotations and writings attributed to Hitler.

FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team