US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Saturday compared incumbent President Donald Trump with the notorious Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, when interviewed by MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle.
“I’m not sure anybody hasn’t already made up their mind they’re for Trump. But who knows. He’s sort of like Goebbels. You say the lie long enough, keep repeating it, repeating it, repeating it, it becomes common knowledge,” Biden said.
Biden outlined that he is ready for "just straight attack" from Trump, claiming "that's the only thing he knows how to do" and slamming his Republican rival's rhetoric.
"He doesn't know how to debate the facts. He's not that smart," Biden said, adding that "he doesn't know much about foreign policy, he doesn't know much about domestic policy. He doesn't know much about the detail... [] It'll be mostly personal attacks and lies; but I think the American people are on to him".
The ongoing squabble between candidates saw both taking verbal shots at each other, with Trump accusing Biden of being supportive of the "radical left" and being a "low energy individual", while also doubting his rival's mental health.
Biden castigates Trump for "lying" about the coronavirus pandemic and claims that the president downplays alleged threats of "Russian meddling" in the presidential election. In his verbal punch, the Democratic candidate compared Trump to Goebbels, one of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's closest associates and the Reich's most prominent propagandist.
In explaining Trump's rhetoric, Biden referenced a well-known Goebbels quote about how to make people believe lies: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
On 29 September, Biden and Trump are scheduled to face off against each other in the first of three presidential debates.