Watch: Beto O’Rourke Compares Trump Rhetoric to “Third Reich,” Won’t Back Down When Questioned

Thursday night at an Iowa town hall, presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke compared Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigration to what one might have heard in Nazi Germany. When an attendee asked him about responding to attacks from Republicans, he spoke of “the rhetoric of a president who not only describes immigrants as rapists and criminals but as animals and an infestation.” He went on to say:

“Now, I might expect someone to describe another human being as an infestation in the Third Reich. I would not expect that in the United States of America.”

After the rally, a reporter asked him to elaborate on the remarks. Watch the video here:

In Iowa, @BetoORourke says the president’s rhetoric on migrants and calls to ban Muslims sound more like the Third Reich than the USA.

Asked about the comparison after the rally, he emphatically stood by it.

Watch the exchange here pic.twitter.com/aAmE3AgWGd

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) April 5, 2019

This is peak O’Rourke—making a big point, making it with energy, and turning it into a viral moment. It’s the best we can expect of him on the campaign trail, since his shtick is mostly, um, substance-free, but if there’s a safe “Trump is bad” speech to be made, you can count on him to make it with verve.