Conservative Pundit Candace Owens Clarifies Viral Hitler Comment After Backlash

Conservative pundit and speaker Candace Owens has responded to criticism of recently unearthed remarks she made late last year regarding Hitler while discussing the term nationalism.

Owens was asked for her thoughts on the future of nationalist movements in December during the London launch of the British Chapter of Turning Point USA.

Owens, the director of communications at the conservative advocacy group, said “nationalism” has been given a bad rap before pivoting to the Nazi dictator.

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“I actually don’t have any problems at all with the word ‘nationalism.’ I think that the definition gets poisoned by elitists that actually want globalism,” she said. “Whenever we say ‘nationalism,’ the first thing people think about, at least in America, is Hitler. He was a national socialist, but if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, okay fine.”

“The problem is that he wanted — he had dreams outside of Germany,” Owens continued. “He wanted to globalize. He wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German.”

The highly controversial remarks were brought to light by a newly resurfaced YouTube video that was posted last year.

On Friday, Owens dismissed the controversy, sought to clarify her remarks and blamed “leftist journalists” for mischaracterizing her comments in a video she posted to Twitter on Friday.

“BuzzFeed is crazy, leftist journalists are crazy and they’re trying to make it seem like I said something I would never say,” she stated to the camera.

Hitler was “a homicidal, psychotic maniac” and there is “no excuse or defense ever for everything that he did,” Owens clarified.

She dismissed critics who said her comments meant that Hitler could have been great if he had just focused on Germany. Instead, she claimed her remarks were meant to show that Hitler was not a nationalist: he “was putting German Jews into concentration camps and murdering — he was a mass murderer.”

The Pro-Trump activist did not retract her comments in her later clarification. “I stand by my statements and that is that,” she said.

Owens faced a flurry of criticism on social media for the comments, including a spat with Chelsea Clinton on Twitter.

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Owens has embraced her role as a young black woman defending conservatism and attacking liberals. She has made headlines for praising two of America’s more controversial men: Donald Trump and Kanye West.

Apparently, the feeling is mutual. Trump tweeted praise for the frequent Fox News guest in May of 2018:

With Kanye out of the politics game, hopefully Trump can help Owens out of this sticky situation.