A Republican congressman has been slammed after he quoted Joseph Goebbels during a congressional hearing.
Texas congressman Keith Self was speaking during a House foreign relations subcommittee meeting when he decided to recite a quote from one of Adolf Hitler’s closest allies.
The senator said: “A direct quote from Joseph Goebbels [the Nazi propaganda minister]: ‘It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion’, and I think that may be what we’re discussing here.”
Once he had finished, Democratic congresswoman Julie Johnson condemned Self for using the Goebbels quote.
She said: “I want to respond to what my colleague from Texas just said. When you’re quoting Joseph Goebbels about state, the role of state in the public debate, we have a big problem.
“I mean, that’s as alarming as hell to me, when that becomes the gold standard of Hitler, and all that was going on in Russia, I mean, in German atrocities during World War II, when that becomes the quote of this hearing.”
Sharing the clip from the hearing on X, Johnson said: “Joseph Goebbels was a literal Nazi and one of Hitler’s closest allies. To my Republican colleagues, it is probably best not to quote him during a congressional hearing.”
Johnson wasn’t the only one to be appalled by Self’s words, with the Republican being widely criticised for his actions.
One person wrote on social media: “When Republicans start quoting Josef Goebbels you know America is f***ed.”
Someone else wrote: “As someone who lived and went to school in Germany for years, this is absolutely unacceptable. Quoting Joseph Goebbels, the architect of Nazi propaganda on the congressional record is not just as despicable as it is dangerously revealing.”
Even some of Self’s own party called him out for it, with Republican Jack Kimble writing: “Liberals are going to attack him for this, but I’m sure that he just accidentally quoted Goebbels like the way that Elon Musk accidentally did the Nazi salute twice.”
Remarkably, this isn’t the first time Self has decided to quote one of the main architects of Nazi Germany.
In 2010, during an election race for Collin County Judge, he quoted Goebbels in an attempt to get one over on his opponent.
Self recited Goebbels quote: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
He claimed at the time that he was only using the quote to suggest his opponent “was using the same method,” Indy100 reports.
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