Hitler 'didn't say it the way I said it': Trump defends Nazi-style rhetoric

Former President Donald Trump on Friday defended his use of Nazi-style rhetoric to describe immigrants by claiming that he had no idea his words directly echoed those of Adolf Hitler.

In his autobiographical manifesto "Mein Kampf," Hitler posited that in the past great cultures died out due to "blood poisoning," and he said that Jews in Europe were primarily responsible for such "poisoning" in Germany.

"A racially pure people which is conscious of its blood can never be enslaved by the Jew," argued Hitler, who today is known as one of the worst mass murderers in human history. "... And so he tries systematically to lower the racial level by a continuous poisoning of individuals."

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Trump in recent speeches has similarly claimed that immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of America.

In an interview with right-wing talk radio show host Hugh Hewitt, however, Trump claimed ignorance of Hitler's words, while also saying that he didn't mean to give his own remarks about "blood poisoning" the same sinister connotations that Hitler did.

"I know nothing about Hitler," said Trump, as transcribed by Politico reporter Sam Stein. "I’m not a student of Hitler. I never read his works. They say that he said something about blood. He didn’t say it the way I said it, it's a very different kind of statement."

Watch the video below or at this link.