President Donald Trump triggered a new wave of controversy during a joint press conference in Scotland with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, when he said the hostages still trapped in Gaza are being treated worse than the Germans treated Holocaust victims — and gave an example similar to the experience of Anne Frank.
"Not one person said there was any love from anybody," said Trump. "In other words, you have hundreds of people and you see it in the movies where somebody is a prisoner and somebody is helping. You even see it with Germany where people would be led into a house and live in an attic in secret. I said, did you see anything like that? Did they wink at you, say don't worry, you'll be okay?"
Trump appeared to be attempting to reference the fact that some German civilians were part of the underground resistance movement against Nazi Germany, helping Jews escape and hide, and to assert that no Palestinians are doing the same for Israeli hostages in Gaza.
Trump received mockery from a number of commenters on social media for flaws in his logic.
"What the hell is he talking about?" wrote former Massachusetts town councilor Donald Blais Jr.
"We've entered the 'Hopefully [Anne Frank] would have been a belieber' part of the program apparently. (That attic was in the Netherlands, for the record.)" wrote Vanity Fair contributing editor and The Black List founder Franklin Leonard.
This is not the first time Trump has landed in hot water for trying to make a similar comparison between the situation in Gaza and Nazi Germany.
In April, during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump got blowback after he said, "I said to [the former hostages], was there any sign of love? Did Hamas show any signs of, like, help or liking you? Did they give you a piece of bread extra? Did they give you a meal on the side? Like what happened in Germany, what happened elsewhere? People would try and help people that were in unbelievable distress. They said no."
