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Donald Trump's vermin comment was 'not a slip of the tongue,' Rachel Maddow tells Stephen Colbert

Rachel Maddow is convinced Donald Trump is 'trying to build an antidemocratic movement' like Hitler or Mussolini

MANHATTAN, NEW YORK: Former US President Donald Trump promised to "root out the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, and Radical Left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country" in a post on Truth Social on Saturday.

Trump's choice of words has sparked an uproar, as the term “vermin” was often infamously used by Nazis to refer to Jews.

Trump used inflammatory and derogatory language to describe his opponents on Saturday during a nearly two-hour Veterans Day speech in Claremont, New Hampshire.

"The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within,” he said.

Author and journalist Rachel Maddow came on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' on Wednesday to promote her latest book, 'Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism'.

She said that the former president is deliberately using dehumanizing language against his opponents and inviting critics to label him a “fascist” as he seeks to return to power.

What did Maddow say on Stephen Colbert's show?

The Emmy-winning journalist, who hosts 'The Rachel Maddow Show' on MSNBC, reflected on the current state of political affairs in the United States in her conversation with Colbert.

Maddow admitted, "I feel like we have been in this moment where there is an ascendant antidemocratic movement in our politics, and it can be very flummoxing and very concerning."

However, she shared her optimism by saying, "For me, it actually helps to know that Americans before us faced something just as bad or worse and did very well against it."

On being asked about Trump's recent Veterans Day speech, Maddow explained, "This wasn't something that he riffed on. It seemed to have been in his teleprompter. It was 100 minutes into the speech, and he, after the speech, then posted it with the same language on Truth."

"And so this means this is not a slip of the tongue. This is something that he's doing deliberately. And if you know one thing about fascist dictators, you know that they call the people, they want to eliminate vermin, right?" she added.

Maddow continued, "You know that dehumanizing language is the thing. It's like the cartoon language of fascism. And so I think that he's deliberately doing that. And so Trump did that at the same time that we've had these leaks, kind of official leaks from his campaign that he wants to build camps for millions of people."

Maddow shed some light on Trump's proposed 'Insurrection Act', saying, "He also wants to invoke something called the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to use US Military force against American civilians at home. And he says he's going to invoke that on day one, which would give him, from that day forward, the ability to use the army against us at home. So floating all of those things at once and calling his opponents vermin, he's deliberately inviting the criticism that he is behaving like a Hitler or Mussolini-style fascist."

Maddow on what makes Trump appealing to right wing

When Colbert asked Maddow on the show why she thinks Trump still holds considerable appeal amongst voters on the right, she replied, "Well, I think that he's inviting us to call him a fascist."

She added, "He does want to be talked about in these terms. But also it's important that you pointed out that he, in that speech, also called his critics fascists. He wants fascists just to become a random political epithet, just an insult that everybody uses. That means nothing. In the same way that he took fake. Fake news was a thing, but then he decided all news is fake news. And now fake news is just this term that means nothing."

Maddow further explained, "This is the way he works. But it's not just about him. He's trying to build an antidemocratic movement in this country where people want a strong man to hold power by force. Rather than for us to use elections."

She concluded her view on the former president saying, "We need to talk our fellow Americans out of that as an idea without paying any attention to him."