Ben Carson Won’t Stop Talking About Hitler

Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson continued to use Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany references this week as he defended comments that Hitler took away citizens guns to fuel his rise to power.

During an interview on Thursday, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Carson to explain a passage in his new book, “A More Perfect Union,” about the Nazi effort to take away Germans’ guns.

“I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed,” Carson said in response. “There’s a reason that these dictatorial people take the guns first.”

The Anti-Defamation League slammed Carson’s comments in a statement, noting that his comments are “historically inaccurate.”

On ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Friday morning, Carson defended his comments about Nazi Germany.

“That’s total foolishness,” he said of the Anti-Defamation League statement. “I’d be happy to discuss that in depth with anybody but it is well known that in many places where tyranny has taken over, they first disarm the people. There’s a reason they disarm the people. They don’t just do it arbitrarily.”

Many conservatives have pushed the theory that gun control helped Hitler rise to power in Germany, however that theory has been debunked.

Hitler references are not new to Carson. He has mentioned the Holocaust during the campaign and before he announced his presidential run. Carson keeps defending his comparisons despite concerns from his campaign staffers.

“It’s an example [Carson] has been using for years and to be honest with you he needs to find a better example because the problem is as soon as you say Hitler, nobody hears anything else you say,” Carson’s campaign manager, Barry Bennett, told ABC News about Carson’s recent comments that Hitler could “happen here.” “It’s just so evil, so contemptible, that no one can hear anything else.”