Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) likening of U.S. alien detention facilities to “concentration camps” makes her a “Holocaust denier,” said Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, during a Wednesday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak.
On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez described President Donald Trump as a “fascist” operating “concentration camps” on the U.S.-Mexico border, later alluding to the Holocaust by saying, “Never Again.”
Dershowitz characterized Ocasio-Cortez as “a bigoted ignoramus who makes comparisons between what’s going on on the southern border and the Holocaust,” adding, “Let nobody misunderstand what she was saying. When she used the words “concentration camps,” what she meant to invoke was the Holocaust. She didn’t make distinctions between death camps and detention centers, between Dachau and Auschwitz. Even in the concentration camps that may not have been death camps, so many people died because they were forced laborers and everything like that. And of course “Never Again” is the direct invocation of the Holocaust.”
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Derhsowitz continued, “By making that comparison, she becomes a Holocaust denier, because what’s she’s saying is, ‘Gee, if all that Hitler did is what Trump is doing on the southern border, then there were no death camps. There were no killing squads. There was no genocide. There was no murder of a million-and-a-half babies. There were no selections where people were picked based on their health and whether they were twins and subjected to the most gruesome form of punishment.'”
Ocasio-Cortez’s subsequent denial that she was invoking the Holocaust with her comments about “concentration camps” amounted to a “nonsense excuse” and an “insult to the intelligence,” determined Dershowitz.
“Then you get Democrats who are prepared to just support anything Democrats say,” noted Dershowitz, highlighting Rep. Jerry Nadler’s (D-NY) expressed support for Ocasio-Cortez’s Holocaust reference. “Look, there are Republicans like that, too, but we’re talking about Democrats, now. The idea that any Democrat — from New York, no less, representing a heavily Jewish district — would defend her for those statements just tells us what’s going on in the world today, and it’s not a good scene.”
Pollak noted CNN’s Chris Cuomo’s support for Ocasio-Cortez’s Holocaust invocation. Cuomo further framed “America First” and nationalist politics as Hitlerian.
“Partisanship is destroying … the brains of people, or their integrity,” assessed Dershowitz. “I can’t imagine that Nadler doesn’t understand that he is defending bigotry, and bigotry against his own people. But Democrats come first. Defending your colleagues comes first.”
Breitbart News Tonight broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot channel 125 weeknights from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern or 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific.
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.