Hillary Clinton was accused by some of making an inappropriate reference to the Holocaust Friday in a remark about some Republican immigration reform plans.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the Democratic National Committee summer meeting, Aug. 28, 2015 in Minneapolis. (Photo by Adam Bettcher/Getty Images)
During a press conference at the Democratic National Committee's summer meeting in Minneapolis, Clinton was asked how she would handle the issue of illegal immigrants currently residing in the U.S.
"Well, I’m glad you asked me that, because I know that there are some on the other side who are seriously advocating to deport 11, 12 million people who are working here," Clinton said.
"I find it the height of irony that a party which espouses small government would want to unleash a massive law enforcement effort, including, perhaps, the National Guard and others to go and literally pull people out of their homes and their work places, round them up, put them, I don't know, in buses, boxcars in order to take them across our border," the Democratic presidential candidate said. "I just find that not only absurd but appalling."
Watch the comment (via MSNBC via Mediaite):
CNN reported that Clinton's traveling press secretary Nick Merrill denied the "boxcar" terminology being a reference to the Holocaust and noted that Jeb Bush, a GOP presidential candidate, used the same word to also describe the deportation of illegal immigrants.
"I don't think our country is going to be the kind of country that puts people on boxcars and sends them away," Bush said in late June.
Allison Moore, press secretary for the Republican National Convention, told the U.K.'s Daily Mail Online that Clinton "reached a new low today hurling Holocaust references at her political opponents."
"Hillary Clinton may be getting desperate over her sinking poll numbers and growing email scandal, but that's no excuse for this kind of inflammatory and extreme rhetoric," Moore said, according to the Mail Online.
In July, Clinton criticized GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's reference to the Holocaust, made while discussing the Iran nuke deal.
Huckabee had said in an interview that Obama trusting Iran to hold up its end of the bargain would allow them to "take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven." Clinton, along with many others, criticized Huckabee for this comment.
“Comments like these are offensive and have no place in our political dialogue," Clinton said after his remark, according to Politico. "I am disappointed and I am really offended personally. I know Governor Huckabee. I have a cordial relationship with him. He served as governor of Arkansas. But I find this kind of inflammatory rhetoric totally unacceptable."
The former Arkansas governor responded with somewhat of a defense of his comment.
"Hillary Clinton came out of hiding today to attack my comments on Iran, calling them unacceptable," he said in a statement, "but what’s truly unacceptable is a mushroom cloud over Israel."
“How many times will Iran’s leaders call for Israel’s annihilation before Hillary wakes up to this existential threat?” he asked. “How many murdered Israelis will it take for Hillary to express as much outrage at Iran as she did at my defense of Israel?”
