White House Warns Trump’s Vow To Destroy His ‘Vermin’ Political Opponents Is An ‘Unprecedented Danger’ To Americans’ Freedoms
AP Photo/Butch Dill
The White House sounded the alarm on Monday after former President Donald Trump put out a post for Veteran’s Day that called his political enemies “vermin” that must be rooted out.
White House spokesperson and Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates told Mediaite in a statement, “We do not comment in the 2024 presidential election. The nation just observed Veterans Day, recognizing the sacred memory of every American who risked their lives to defend our freedom. Veterans who are absolutely not ‘suckers’ or ‘losers;” but who, as President Biden has said, deserve our greatest respect.”
Bates’ comments were referring to Trump telling his then Chief of Staff John Kelly he didn’t want to visit a WWI cemetery while on a trip to Europe in 2018 because it was full of “suckers” and “losers.” Kelly, a former Marine Corps general who lost his own son in battle, confirmed Trump’s statements (which were first reported in the Atlantic in 2020) in an on-the-record statement to CNN in October – listing other shocking jabs Trump made at wounded or fallen veterans.
Bates added in his statement:
Suspending the Constitution would gut the protection of freedom that defines our country, and for which so many brave service members sacrificed everything. That abuse of power would put the rights of all Americans in unprecedented danger.
And as the Washington Post wrote, employing words like ‘vermin’ to describe anyone who makes use of their basic right to criticize the government ‘echoes dictators’ like Hitler and Mussolini. Using terms like that about dissent would be unrecognizable to our founders, but horrifyingly recognizable to American veterans who put on their country’s uniform in the 1940s. President Biden believes in his oath to our Constitution, and in American democracy. He works to protect both every day.
Trump has been under fire for a post he made on Truth Social Saturday, in which he wrote, “In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day, we pledge to you that we will 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 went on to claim that his domestic enemies are a greater threat than global rivals or international terror groups. “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave, than the threat from within. Despite the hatred and anger of the Radical Left Lunatics who want to destroy our Country, we will MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” he concluded.
Trump’s rhetoric was widely condemned as reminiscent of the dehumanizing and scapegoating that took place around WWII in Nazi Germany and other fascist regimes. Trump’s campaign spokesperson hit back at critics making that comparison, saying “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.”
