Expert shocked as Trump appears to claim Hitler's theories as his own: 'It was my idea'

For all the accusations and denials that former President Donald Trump has made about his use of Nazi talking points, an acclaimed New York City author says there's some truth to it.

Kurt Anderson, who co-founded Spy Magazine and writes about politics, appeared on MSNBC's "The Last Word" with Lawrence O'Donnell to talk about Trump's supposed adoption of Adolf Hitler's terms and concepts.

"When [Trump] admits ignorance, one is inclined to believe it because he's ignorant of so much," Anderson explained.

He was talking about how Trump has attempted to assuage comments, such as his accusation that immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of America, as a joke, and then pleaded ignorance of Hitler's speeches and writings.

During a rally in New Hampshire earlier this month, Trump painted immigrants entering the U.S. to be damaging the heritage of America.

“They let — I think the real number is 15, 16 million people into our country," he said. "When they do that, we got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country."

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Then in an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt last week, the former president stuck to the poison comment, but pirouetted away any Hitler origins.

"First of all, I know nothing about Hitler. I'm not a student of Hitler. I never read his works," he said during the interview. "They say that he said something about blood. He didn't say it the way I said it, either, by the way.

"It's a very different kind of a statement. What I'm saying when I talk about people coming into our country is they are destroying our country."

Anderson said that Trump can't backtrack.

"It's not accusations," he said. "It is remarkable and, of course, it's more remarkable that he's repeating it."

He pointed to a 1990 Vanity Fair article penned by Marie Brenner that mentions a Trump Organization worker who routinely enters Trump's office, "clicks his heels and says, "Heil Hitler."

At that time, Trump had a copy of Hitler's collected speeches by his bed (that Trump reportedly mistakes for Mein Kampf), according to the report.

When pressed, Trump sidestepped.

"If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them," he said at the time.

Again, Anderson thinks Trump is playing coy.

"He says 'It's not Mein Kampf', ' I didn't read Mein Kampf', and he's almost saying 'It's my own idea about 'poisoning the blood of the country," he said.

Watch the video below or at this link.