Vance slams ‘poisoning our blood’ comparisons between Trump comments, Nazis

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) issued a passionate defense of former President Trump’s recent remarks claiming that migrants attempting to enter the U.S. are “poisoning the blood of our country,” insisting that he was referring to fentanyl overdoses. 

When asked about the comments on Capitol Hill, Vance slammed the notion that Trump was borrowing rhetoric by Adolf Hitler and maintained that he was talking about the drug epidemic.

“First of all, he didn’t say immigrants were poisoning the blood of this country. He said illegal immigrants were poisoning the blood of this country, which is objectively and obviously true to anybody who looks at the statistics about fentanyl overdoses,” Vance said. 

The Ohio Republican, who has endorsed Trump’s campaign, also criticized the framing of questions from reporters who likened the remarks to those by Hitler around World War II, calling it “absurd.”

“Why do you think that Donald Trump’s language is targeted at the blood of the immigrants and not at the blood of the American citizens who are being poisoned by the fentanyl problem,” Vance continued. “This is ridiculous. If you watch the speech in context and look at what’s going on, it’s obvious that he was talking about the very clear fact that the blood of Americans is being poisoned by a drug epidemic.”

“To take that comment and then to immediately assume that he’s talking about immigrants as Adolf Hitler was talking about Jews is preposterous,” he said, adding, “You guys need to wake up. … It’s an absurd question. It’s an absurd framing.”

Trump’s comments came during a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday and were not the first time he has used that sort of rhetoric. 

“All over the world they’re coming into our country. From Africa, from Asia, all over the world,” Trump said, adding it would lead to increases in crime and terrorism.

Trump wrote later that night on social media in all capital letters: “Immigration is poisoning the blood of our nation.”

Most other Senate Republicans have complained about the remarks since Monday, telling reporters they were unhelpful or that they wished he would make his point in a different way. 

Outside of Vance, few others have defended the ex-president’s remarks. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said that he didn’t think Trump went far enough in his rally.

“I’m mad he wasn’t tougher,” he said.

The Biden campaign has seized on the Trump remarks and have pressed that the ex-president was parroting the former Nazi leader.