O'Rourke says Trump's rhetoric is "perhaps inspired by Goebbels" and Hitler's Third Reich

Beto O'Rourke. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke told MSNBC's "PoliticsNation" Sunday there's "so much that is resonant" in the Trump administration of Nazi Germany, suggesting the president may have been inspired by Adolf Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

"President Trump, perhaps inspired by Goebbels and the propagandists of the Third Reich, seems to employ this tactic that the bigger the lie, the more obscene the injustice, the more dizzying the pace of this bizarre behavior, the less likely we are to be able to do something about it."

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Talking Trump and more w/ 2020 Presidential candidate Beto O’rourke on #PoliticsNation. pic.twitter.com/MdkghL1MSv

— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) October 20, 2019

The big picture: O'Rourke has previously criticized Trump for his divisive rhetoric and policies, notably calling him a "white supremacist." In April, he said it could be compared to the language "that you might have heard during the Third Reich." Now he's confirmed to MSNBC's Al Sharpton that he believes Trump was perhaps influenced by the Nazis.

• O'Rourke expressed gratitude for the House impeachment inquiry, which he said was "a good sign" that Trump was caught. He said Trump had told a "big lie" and slammed him for using anti-Muslim rhetoric.

"Outside of Nazi Germany, it is hard for me to find another modern democracy that had the audacity to say something like this and then this idea from Goebbels and Hitler that the bigger the lie and the more often you repeat it, the more likely people are to believe it. That is Donald Trump to a T."

What he's saying: Trump denies that he's racist. He said in August that he's "concerned about the rise of any group of hate. ... Whether it's white supremacy, whether it's any other kind of supremacy. Whether it's Antifa," he said, referring to the far-left, anti-fascist movement. "Whether it's any group of hate."

Go deeper: Trump's premeditated racism is central to his 2020 strategy