Hillary Compares Trump to Hitler, His Supporters to Nazis Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) 2022 Meeting on September 20, 2022 in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty)
By Nick Koutsobinas | Saturday, 24 September 2022 06:12 PM EDT
Hillary Clinton on Friday likened former President Donald Trump's supporters to Nazis, and Trump himself to Adolf Hitler.
"I remember as a young student, you know, trying to figure out, how people get basically drawn in by Hitler. How did that happen? I'd watch newsreels and I'd see this guy standing up there ranting and raving, and people shouting and raising their arms. I thought, 'What's happened to these people?'" Clinton said Friday at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, miming the Nazi Sig Heil salute.
"You saw the rally in Ohio the other night," she continued, according to a New York Post report. "Trump is there ranting and raving for more than an hour, and you have these rows of young men with their arms raised. I thought, 'What is going on?'"
While there are known reports of attendees at Trump's Youngstown, Ohio rally for GOP senate candidate J.D. Vance sig heil-ing, as the Post notes, there were attendees with their index fingers pointed to the ceiling. Some have taken it as a reference to a Qanon conspiracy theory. Others questioned if it may have been ostentation about being "No. 1."
"My fellow citizens," Trump said amidst dramatic music, "this incredible journey we're on together has only just begun, and it is time to start talking about greatness for our country again. We are one movement, one people, one family, and one glorious American nation."
One of Trump's representatives called the finger-pointing a "dopey conspiracy."
"As usual," Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich says, "the media is working hand in hand with the Democrats weeks before an election."
"It seems like perpetual-failed-candidate Hillary Clinton's basket of deplorables has run stale, not unlike herself. It's pathetic, it's divisive, and it is further cementing her legacy of cringe."
During the 2016 presidential run, Hillary Clinton referred to Trump's supporters as a "basket of deplorables."
Clinton's comments come after President Joe Biden at the beginning of Sept. referred to the "MAGA" voters of Trump as a threat to the United States.