This is low.
Speaking on Friday (January 14) in a radio interview with Florida RoundUp, Florida agriculture commissioner and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nikki Fried drew parallels between Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
In the interview, Fried said rather than DeSantis “listening and trying to govern with the people, he is trying to govern over the people, and, you know, that, I’m sorry, I’m a student of history, too. I saw the rise of Hitler.”
Co-host Melissa Ross then asked the gubernatorial candidate if she was drawing comparisons between DeSantis and Hitler, to which Fried responded, “In a lot of ways, yes.”
She elaborated her stance by saying she had studied Hitler, his rise to power, and his desire for “his own militia” referencing the move by DeSantis to re-establish a state guard, which is utilized by 22 other states in emergencies.
However, her belief was that –– unlike other states –– DeSantis wasn’t using the guard for “emergency purposes.” Instead, she said DeSantis was deciding to reinstate the state guard “for the sole purposes of power. Field continued saying, he was “blaming certain parts of our society and culture, and that’s exactly what Hitler did to the Jews back during World War II.”
She was then queried about those who believed comparisons to Hitler were offensive, to which Fried suggested politicians who did that had “lost the plot.”
Fried continued her remarks, “do I think that we are going to get to the extent of Hitler’s power? Of course not.” Before mentioning aspects of Hitler’s political journey that she was comparing. “The rise of his power and what he did to scapegoat certain parts and certainly the Jewish community in Germany and how he utilized going after the media, going after and scapegoating people and blaming people and putting fear and taking over the military. That’s what this governor is doing.”
In a statement to Fox News, DeSantis Press Secretary Christina Pushaw mentioned that Fried’s remarks trivialized Hitler’s atrocities, saying that her “hysterical comparison” smeared “millions of Floridians as Nazis, but also trivializes Hitler’s crimes against humanity.”
