Trump Criticized for Headlining Event With Far-Right Groups: “Rubbing Elbows With Nazis”

Former President Donald Trump was recently slammed for delivering the keynote speech on a notorious event affiliated with neo-nazi groups.

Several prominent members of the extreme right worldwide were present at the New York Young Republican Club's annual banquet, held on December 9, per Raw Story. In addition to far-right American politicians such as Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colorado), Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), and Paul Gosar (R-Arizona), the event was attended by right-wing extremists from Europe, including Gerald Grosz (Austria), member of the European Parliament, and Susanna Ceccardi (the far-right Lega party of Italy), Talking Points Memo reports.

The gathering was attended by German politician Maximilian Krah, whose Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party is a right-wing extremist group. Critics in Germany have labeled the AfD as antisemitic, Islamophobic, and a "neo-Nazi" movement. State-level intelligence services have also labeled the organization as a right-wing extremist.

Grosz, Ceccardi, and Krah are all from different nations, yet they have all been involved in nationalist and anti-immigrant groups. Gerald Grosz first belonged to the far-right Freedom Party of Austria, which was established by former SS officer and Nazi Party leader Anton Reinthaller. After supporting Adolf Hitler's regime, Grosz and his colleague Jorg Haider—the son of a Nazi stormtrooper—joined an offshoot of the Freedom Party. 

Ammar Moussa, the head of rapid response for President Joe Biden's reelection campaign, criticized Trump for the incident and said voters will decide by casting ballots. "Donald Trump rubbing elbows with Nazi-linked groups might be surprising if Trump’s last month wasn’t defined by him parroting Hitler and Mussolini, and promising to rule as a dictator so he can rip away Americans’ freedoms and round up millions of Americans into detention camps," said Moussa. "The American people rejected Trump and his MAGA attacks on democracy in 2020, and it’s why he’s going to lose again next November," Moussa added.

Ahead of his address, the Club presented Trump as the "45th, 46th, and 47th presidents of the United States," a reference to his unsubstantiated claim that he was the legitimate victor of the 2020 presidential contest. During his address, Trump reiterated his "dictator" remarks, saying that if elected to a second term, he would take over the government and erect a wall along the border "drill drill drill."

The engagement of the New York Young Republican Club with worldwide far-right figures is consistent with the description of the modern GOP made by foreign political analysts. Pippa Norris, a political scientist at Harvard University, polled almost 2,000 political analysts worldwide in 2019 about the authoritarian inclinations of several contemporary far-right groups. She discovered that the Republican Party in the United States has more characteristics with authoritarian, fascist-aligned parties like the AKP in Turkey and Fidesz in Hungary than it does with its equivalents in the G7, such as the Conservatives in the United Kingdom and the Conservatives in Canada, a trend many find problematic.