Watch: Beto O’Rourke Slams Trump’s Rhetoric as ‘Something We Might’ve Expected to Hear in Nazi Germany’

“What other country on the face of the planet does that kind of thing?”

2020 Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke was questioned by a reporter Thursday night after he told an audience that some of President Donald Trump‘s comments echo the rhetoric of Nazi Germany’s “Third Reich.”

Bloomberg’s Sahil Kapur reports O’Rourke had told participants at the Sioux City, Iowa town hall that Trump’s policy of separating migrant families at the Southern border “follows the rhetoric of a president who not only describes immigrants as rapists and criminals but as animals and an infestation.”

O’Rourke, a former U.S. Congressman from Texas, added, “I might expect someone to describe another human being as an infestation in the Third Reich. I would not expect it in the United States of America.”

His comments drew “heavy applause” from the college crowd, Bloomberg notes.

O’Rourke stood by his remarks criticizing the President when the reporter challenged him.

“Calling human beings an infestation is something that we might’ve expected to hear in Nazi Germany,” O’Rourke explained. “Describing immigrants, who have a track record of committing violent crimes at a lower rate than native-born Americans as rapists and criminals. Seeking to ban all Muslims — all people of one religion, what other country on the face of the planet does that kind of thing?”

The former Texas Congressman who raised $9.4 million in just 18 days, was not quite finished.

“Putting kids in cages. Saying that neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists are very fine people,” he added, evoking Trump’s remarks in 2017 that there were “very fine people” in the pro- and anti-white nationalism marches in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Watch:

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