WASHINGTON ― Top Republican lawmakers brushed aside questions about former President Donald Trump’s alarming vow to purge his political opponents, which he referred to as “vermin” in a Veterans’ Day message over the weekend.

“Is that worse than ‘deplorables’? I don’t use that kind of language, but it’s a free country,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told HuffPost on Monday, citing a comment former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton repeated about Trump supporters in 2016.

“Real Hitlers are called Hamas,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) added, referring to the militant group that launched a bloody attack against Israel last month.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) also brought up the “deplorables” remark when asked about Trump’s pledge.

“Are you kidding me? After Hillary Clinton called us all deplorables, people are actually offended by that?” she told HuffPost. “She basically said that half of the country was beneath her and beneath everybody else.”

Asked whether the terms were comparable, given that Trump’s language had historical overtones of 1930s-era fascism, Greene said, “I would say that the Democrats are 1930s fascists and Nazis and your publication is horrible.”

Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, shared a message on his social media platform Truth Social in which he vowed to “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.”

Trump’s critics, including President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, said the former president had echoed the language of dictators who sought to dehumanize their opponents, including Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-vermin_n_6552af95e4b09c9500ab68a9