CEO of Cambridge Analytica parent company compared Trump campaign to Hitler

The CEO of embattled consulting firm Cambridge Analytica’s parent company compared the tactics used by President Trump in his 2016 campaign to those of Adolf Hitler.

A transcript of an interview released on Monday by the British Parliament’s Digital, Media, Culture and Sport Committee reveals that SCL Group CEO Nigel Oakes said that Trump seized on anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. in the same fashion that Hitler demonized Jews to grow political support.

{mosads}”Of course, Hitler attacked the Jews. He didn’t have a problem with the Jews at all, but the people didn’t like the Jews … so he just leveraged an artificial enemy,” Oakes told British academic Emma Briant.

“Well, that’s exactly what Trump did. He leveraged a Muslim.”

Oakes said that Trump seized on fears in the U.S. of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), but questioned how much of a threat the militant group actually posed to Americans.

“ISIS is a real, but how big a threat is ISIS really to America?” Oakes said, according to the transcript.

As a presidential candidate, Trump vowed to crack down on radical Islamic terrorism.

Shortly after taking office, he issued an executive order barring citizens of several Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. — a directive that he said was necessary to safeguard the country against suspected terrorists.

That initial travel ban was blocked in the courts. A subsequent order issued in March also stirred legal opposition but was allowed to partially go into effect by the Supreme Court.

Trump issued a third version of the travel ban in September. The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in that case next week, and a decision on its legality is expected in June.

Cambridge Analytica, a consulting firm linked to Trump’s campaign, has come under fire in recent weeks after it was revealed that it accessed the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users without their consent.