“I am not a Nazi”: after several days of controversy surrounding his potentially authoritarian leanings, Donald Trump claimed on Monday October 28 to be “the opposite of a Nazi”. One week before a particularly uncertain election between the Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and the Republican candidate for the White House, the latter is under fire for old statements he allegedly made and after a meeting in New York marked by racist remarks.
“Kamala’s new line is that everyone who doesn’t vote for her is a Nazi. We are Nazis,” Donald Trump told his supporters during a rally in Atlanta in the key state of Georgia. “I am not a Nazi, I am the opposite of a Nazi,” he then insisted.
Last week, John Kelly, his former chief of staff at the White House, estimated that his ex-boss met the definition of a fascist, an accusation taken up by Kamala Harris. According to John Kelly, the ex-president also said that Adolf Hitler had “done good things”.
Racist “joke”
On Sunday, it was his meeting at Madison Square Garden in New York which created controversy, after the statements of a comedian everywhere denounced as racist. Puerto Rico, a US territory in the Caribbean, is “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean”, said Tony Hinchcliffe. “This joke does not reflect the opinion of the president” Trump, said one of his spokespersons.
At a rally in Philadelphia that same Monday, one of Kamala Harris’ main assets, former President Barack Obama, accused Donald Trump’s allies of “promoting the most racist, sexist and bigots.” He also appealed to Pennsylvania voters with ties to the Puerto Rican community, saying: “If anyone does not see you as fellow citizens who are entitled to equal opportunity, to the pursuit of happiness, to American Dream, you shouldn’t vote for it.”
More than 47 million Americans have already voted early for this election which promises to be the closest in the modern history of the United States. At the national level, polls still give Kamala Harris, who would become the first black woman president of the United States, and Donald Trump, candidate for the White House for the third time, neck and neck. The first said on Monday that she was ready to take a cognitive assessment, calling on her 78-year-old rival to “take the same” exam. This Tuesday, she will deliver a “final indictment” against Donald Trump, in a speech near the White House. At the same place where Donald Trump addressed his supporters on January 6, 2021, before they attacked the Capitol.