Joe Biden sparked outrage this weekend after his campaign team claimed that Adolf Hitler was a role model for Donald Trump.
Spokesperson for the President's 2024 election team, Ammar Moussa, said that the 77-year-old had "parroted Adolf Hitler" during a rally on Saturday night.
Trump had warned that illegal immigration was "poisoning the blood" of the United States during an event in Durham, New Hampshire.
"They're poisoning the blood of our country," he said.
Donald Trump said illegal immigration was 'poisoning the blood' of the United States during an event in Durham, New Hampshire
REUTERS
"They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America, not just in three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world.
"They're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world."
Responding, Moussa claimed: "Tonight Donald Trump channeled his role models as he parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un, and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for president on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy."
He added the former President was "betting he can win this election by scaring and dividing this country. He's wrong."
Joe Biden said the remarks parroted Adolf Hitler
REUTERS
Trump used the same "poisoning the blood" language during an interview with The National Pulse, a right-leaning website, that was published in late September.
It prompted a rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League, whose leader, Jonathan Greenblatt, called the language "racist, xenophobic and despicable."
Biden's comparison has caused a backlash online, with some warning that more care should be taken when comparing political opponents to the Nazi leader.
Journalist Brian Krassenstein said on social media: "While of course when anyone echoes Hitler’s words we should be highly critical of them, I’m sick of watching people pretend that Trump is anything at all remotely close to Adolf Hitler.
"He’s not. I dislike the guy and think he would be a disaster as president if he got four more years, but clearly recognize that comparing anyone to Hitler is minimizing the horrendous actions that Hitler took 80 years ago."
Conservative commentator Ashley St Clair added: "Really sick of the Left saying everything they don’t like is Hitler.
"It’s been incredibly harmful to the Jewish community. We have seen a stark increase in online antisemitism since this 2015 phenomenon of invoking the Hitler/Nazi label & increased censorship."
Another person said: "So tired of how both sides say politicians they don’t like are Hitler.
"Trump isn’t Hitler. Obama isn’t Hitler. Biden isn’t Hitler. DeSantis isn’t Hitler.
"No American politician alive today comes anywhere close to being like Hitler. This needs to stop."
While a fourth added: "Not only is Trump not Hitler, the USA for all it's faults isn't close to 1930's Germany either."