Trump: I'm a nationalist & # 39; – POLITICO

President Donald Trump asserted Monday night that he was a "nationalist" – a denomination that some of his most ferocious critics have exerted against him, as an attack on what he believes his government views as a pursuit of nativist politics.

"You know, they have a word, it has become a little old fashioned. This is called a nationalist, "said Trump during an election campaign in Houston, where he rallied voters to support Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) In the mid-term elections. mandate of November.

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"And I say, really? We are not supposed to use that word, "Trump continued," Do you know what I am? "I'm a nationalist," okay I'm a nationalist. "

While the Houston Toyota Center crowd was screaming applause, the president continued, "Use this word. Use this word. "

Trump's remarks follow a reprimand by the "globalists" he accused of putting the interests of other nations before those of the United States.

"Radical Democrats want to go back. Restore the rule of corrupt and power hungry globalists, "said Trump. "You know what a globist is, right?"

He explained: "A globalist is a person who wants the planet to go well, without really caring about our country. And you know what? We can not have that. "

The words "nationalist" and "globalist" – two loaded terms with sometimes grim implications – have made their way into the popular political lexicon since Trump stepped into the White House.

The former can refer to the promotion of self-governance and the interests of a country. But he has also been associated with the "alt-right" movement, which largely supports the president's agenda but has sometimes been accused of harboring white supremacist tendencies. And this latest label, which may involve a world of more economically connected multinational alliances, is sometimes used by racist commentators on the Internet in a conspiratorial sense, as a euphemism for the Jewish people.

During his frequent campaign stops for Republican candidates in Congress before the mid-term elections, the President repeatedly stressed the risks to national security posed by illegal immigration at the US-Mexico border, and warned against violent gangs and drug traffickers, which he says are threatening American communities. .

Earlier on Monday, Trump had announced on Twitter that a caravan of migrants en route to the US's southern border was a "national emergency," writing online that "criminals and unknowns from the Middle East are mixed."