Trump accused Democrats of running a 'Gestapo administration.' Here's what the reference to Nazis means.
Former President Donald Trump at a Republican retreat compared President Joe Biden’s administration to the Nazi secret police, according to multiple outlets that obtained audio recordings of his comments.
“These people are running a Gestapo administration,” Trump said on Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.
“And it’s the only thing they have. And it’s the only way they’re going to win, in their opinion, and it’s actually killing them. But it doesn’t bother me.”
Trump also claimed that the criminal charges he faces, including allegations he falsified business records to hide a $130,000 hush money payment to a former porn star, were politically motivated.
There is no evidence that the four sets of criminal charges Trump faces are targeting his reelection campaign. There is also no evidence Biden was involved in the indictments, an accusation the former president has repeatedly leveled.
Trump on Saturday also attacked special counsel Jack Smith over the charges the former president allegedly mishandled classified documents after he left office and tried to steal the 2020 election from Biden. Trump also also targeted Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis, who is prosecuting a state-level election case against him.
Trump himself has faced criticism for using rhetoric echoing that of dictators, including last year calling political opponents “vermin” and saying that certain immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.”
Trump's comments came a day before Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins Sunday night.
What was the Gestapo?
The Gestapo was an arm of the Nazi government of Germany between 1933 and 1945.
“Gestapo” is an abbreviation of the German phrase Geheime Staatspolizei, which translates to “Secret State Police.”
It was tasked with protecting and maintaining the Nazi regime by surveilling and repressing political challenges to, or even simple criticism of, the government. The Gestapo acted “without legal limits,” the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Holocaust Encyclopedia explains.
The Gestapo was under the control of the SS, the Nazi administration largely responsible for carrying out the Holocaust.
“Gestapo policemen used torture and violence in interrogations,” the Holocaust Encyclopedia says. “They coordinated the deportation of Jews to their deaths. And they harshly repressed resistance movements in Germany and in German-occupied Europe.”
Today, it goes on to say, the Gestapo and its agents are “symbols of authoritarian policing.”
This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: Donald Trump accuses Biden admin of running 'Gestapo administration'