Trump-loving Tennessee Republican praises Hitler for overcoming homelessness

A Tennessee Republican told fellow legislators that you've got to hand it to Adolf Hitler for overcoming homelessness.

State Sen. Frank Niceley, who recently said he'd "vote for [Donald] Trump as long as he lives," gave an impromptu history lesson during a hearing on unauthorized camping on public property, and he told lawmakers that the Nazi dictator had spent several years living on the streets as a young man in Vienna, Austria.

"I wanted to give you a little history on homelessness," Niceley said. "[In] 1910 Hitler decided to live on the streets for awhile, so for two years Hitler lived on the streets and practiced his oratory and body language, how to connect ... and then went on to lead a life that got him into the history books."

He conceded that Hitler was perhaps not the most sterling character but didn't explain why he used one of history's most notorious figures as an example.

"So a lot of these people -- it's not a dead end," Niceley said. "They can come out of this, these homeless camps, and have a productive life or, in Hitler's case, an unproductive life."

State senators passed the bill expanding punishments for unauthorized camping on state-owned property to all public property, which critics said essentially criminalized those without homes.