Joe Biden compared President Trump to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels on Saturday, accusing the president of lying about the Democratic presidential nominee’s record to the American people.
Speaking to MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle, Biden said Trump has tried to reenforce the false notion that the former vice president is a socialist in an effort to win over moderate swing voters, particularly in the battleground state of Florida.
He added that the GOP has struggled to effectively label him in the home stretch to Election Day.
“I’m not sure anybody hasn’t already made up their mind they’re for Trump. But who knows. He’s sort of like Goebbels. You say the lie long enough, keep repeating it, repeating it, repeating it, it becomes common knowledge,” Biden said.
“The other week I was too moderate, as you remember. I was too tough. And now the American people, I think they know who I am. They know my heart. They know my story, my family story. Trump is using socialism to scare and distract Floridians from a failed pandemic,” he added.
Florida, a critical battleground state in the race for the White House, is home to a large and diverse Hispanic community made up of people who came to America from socialist dictatorships or whose families did so long ago. The GOP is hoping to sway this demographic with messages of Democrats lurching to the left.
Goebbels is notorious for being one of Adolf Hitler’s closest associates and was a staunch advocate for exterminating Jewish people during the Holocaust. He was Nazi Germany’s propaganda minister and was known for his public speaking skills.
Trump initially struggled to label Biden, toggling back and forth between calling Biden too moderate to appeal to Democrats and too liberal to win over centrists, though he has more recently stuck with arguing that Biden is beholden to the far-left flank of his party.
The former vice president expressed optimism that voters will see a clear contrast between him and Trump, pointing to a peaceful protest over police brutality outside the White House. The protest was broken up over the summer after chemical agents were deployed to pave the way for a photo op for the president.
“I think people see very clearly the difference between me and Donald Trump. Trump is clearing protests in front of the White House that are peaceful with the military. This guy’s more [Fidel] Castro than [Winston] Churchill,” he said.