Trump rants about Dr Seuss and claims China will kill us all in return to Fox News

‘Frankly, they think our country is stupid,’ says former president

Donald Trump concluded a bizarre appearance on Fox News by ranting about Dr Seuss and claiming that China is “trying to kill” the US.

Speaking during a rare post-presidency appearance on Fox News on Monday morning, the former president claimed that the Democrats are using “woke” tactics in order to achieve their policy goals.

“In order to accomplish the Green New Deal nonsense, they are destroying it with woke - when China looks at woke they see the biggest problem we have is Dr Seuss.

“In the meantime they are building factories and trying to kill us in so many different ways,” Mr Trump said without citing any evidence or listing examples.

“Frankly, they think our country is stupid when they look at us, when our competitors look at what’s going on in our country.

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“Taking down the statues to great heroes and so many other things. I do not because I want to do what’s right and they are destroying our country,” he added, seemingly in reference to the removal last summer of several statues of members of the Confederacy and historical figures with ties to slavery.

Mr Trump’s comments came a few weeks after Dr Seuss Enterprises, the company that manages Theodor Seuss Geisel’s estate, made the announcement that six of his books written under the pen name Dr Seuss had been pulled from publication over their use of “hurtful and wrong” imagery.

The decision to pull the books has drawn criticism from conservative commentators and prominent Republican politicians, as Texas senator Ted Cruz suggested without evidence that it was the fault of President Joe Biden, and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy released a bizarre five-minute video of himself reading Green Eggs and Ham.

Fox News has also commented on the decision on multiple occasions by linking the move to what host Gillian Turner described as “cancel culture,” before claiming last week: “From Dr Seuss to the Muppets and broadcasters losing their jobs for sharing their opinions on TV.”

Democratic politicians have not made the books being pulled from publication a concern since the announcement was made, as the Biden administration focuses on implementing its first policies.

Mr Trump’s comments about China came after a year of the former president using anti-China rhetoric and racist slurs while talking about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Alongside other Republicans, he repeatedly referred to Covid-19 as “kung flu” or “Wuhan flu” during the pandemic, which saw him criticised for blaming the virus on a single country and group of people, leading to a rise in hate crimes.

Since March 2020, nearly 3,800 incidents have been reported to Stop AAPI Hate, a California-based reporting centre for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, with 68 per cent of the incidents recorded against Asian women.

The United Nations also expects to have recorded a significant rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans in the US over the past 12 months, with the anti-China rhetoric of Mr Trump and other Republicans being blamed by many experts.