A Republican congressman appalled Democrats at a congressional hearing by quoting infamous Nazi Joseph Goebbels.
“A direct quote from Joseph Goebbels: ‘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,” said Texas’ Keith Self.
Goebbels was the minister of propaganda for the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler. His role was to convince the German people to support Hitler’s regime, which he did so by spreading anti-Semitism and orchestrating the 1933 burning of “un-German” books in Berlin.
Self, 72, referenced Goebbels’ words during a House subcommittee meeting aimed at determining whether a “censorship industrial complex” existed. The Tuesday hearing was held after Republicans claimed that Biden-era policies aimed to stifle rightwing views.
Texas Democrat Rep. Julie Johnson heavily criticized Self’s remarks.
“When you’re quoting Joseph Goebbels about… the role of state in the public debate, we have a big problem,” Johnson said. “I mean, that’s as alarming as hell to me, when that becomes the gold standard of Hitler.”
She said it was concerning that he was referencing a quote associated with “German atrocities during World War II.”
She later posted the clip of Self on X with the comment, “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.”
Self rebutted that Johnson’s “framing is completely misleading.”
He said: “I was referring to the philosophy of Nina Jankowicz, the former head of Biden’s Disinformation Governance Board. Probably best not to throw stones when your party supported funneling millions of dollars through Biden’s State Dept. to shape public opinion.”
At the hearing, Jankowicz, the leader of a pro-democracy organization and former executive director of the Disinformation Governance Board, said that “the premise of this hearing, the so called censorship industrial complex, is a fiction that has not only had profound impacts on my life and safety, but on our national security.” She later added that the “fiction is itself suppressing speech and stymieing critical research that protects our country.”
DOGE leader Elon Musk later called Jankowicz and her colleague “evil people.”
Despite Self’s defense, it isn’t the first time he’s used Goebbel quotes.
He cited the Nazi in 2010 when he was running for reelection as Collin County Judge. At the time, he tried to bite back at his opponent by saying, “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” At the time, he claimed he was only using the widely-circulated yet unsubstantiated Goebbels quote to show that his opponent was “using the method.”
HuffPost reported that Self’s office did not directly comment on his bizarre Nazi quotes but instead said: “It is indisputable that the Biden administration weaponized its State Department to censor and suppress American citizens from their right to free speech.”
Self also recently received backlash after misgendering Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE), the first openly transgender congresswoman.
The outcries following Self’s Goebbels quote comes after Democrats condemned Musk’s gesture at the presidential inauguration, which looked like a Nazi salute. He did little to defend the move at the time but instead made Holocaust-related jokes and Nazi puns to his over 200 million X followers.
Musk also recently retweeted an X post saying that Hitler and other dictators like Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong did not murder millions of people, but “their public sector workers did” instead.
