Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie warned that former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric could encourage others.
The former New Jersey governor, while discussing Mr. Trump’s recent “vermin” description of his political opponents, said there’s nothing “he won’t say or do” if people don’t side with him.
“Well, I think that what he’s done with his use of language is to give permission to a lot of people who then believe they can take it even further,” Mr. Christie said Wednesday on CNN. “And they can actionize the things that he’s saying, weaponize the things that he’s saying. And most people won’t use that type of language because they know there’s a risk of that.”
The former president told a crowd last weekend in New Hampshire that he would “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.”
He used the same language in a Truth Social post Saturday, pledging to “root out [those groups] in honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day.”
The comment has received a lot of backlash, with some even comparing it to that of dictators Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini.
“It echoes language you heard in Nazi Germany in the ’30s,” President Biden said this week. “And it isn’t even the first time. Trump also recently talked about ‘the blood of America is being poisoned.’ Again, echoes the same phrases used in Nazi Germany.”
In a statement about the backlash, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said that “those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything because they are suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome and their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.”
Mr. Christie agreed with Mr. Biden, adding that the former president “just doesn’t care” about the risk of using such language.
“His view is if it’s good for him at that moment, he’ll do it, and then if something bad happens, he’ll disown any responsibility for it,” the former governor said.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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