By Ron Kampeas
(JTA) — Two major Jewish civil rights groups want Donald Trump to stop using Nazi analogies to decry his legal woes.
The former president’s first official comment Tuesday after the unveiling of a federal indictment charging him with conspiracy to defraud the United States after he lost the last election was to invoke Nazis. This is the third time this year Trump has been indicted.
Donald Trump speaks during an event at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., Nov. 15, 2022. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes,” his campaign said. Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination.
“Comparing this indictment to Nazi Germany in the 1930s is factually incorrect, completely inappropriate and flat out offensive,” Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League CEO, said on Twitter. “As we have said time and again, such comparisons have no place in politics and are shameful.”
The American Jewish Committee in a statement advised Trump to chat with a Holocaust survivor.
“Here’s some advice. Please sit with a Holocaust survivor and let them share their story,” AJC said in a statement. “Just listen. Then show them the respect they deserve and honor the memory of the six million Jews slaughtered by the Nazis by never making a comparison like this again.”
Since launching his campaign, Trump has come under fire for socializing with a Holocaust denier as well as invoking Nazi analogies to lambaste his critics and law enforcement officials investigating his myriad scandals.
In 2017, after BuzzFeed published an unverified dossier containing allegations about him, Trump sent a tweet asking, “Are we living in Nazi Germany?”