Yes he is, he's using "the big lie" technique.

Just spout the exact opposite, like the german neo nazis are like the american democrats (win win eh) so "I didn't do anything wrong".

Politicians have whole think tanks to help them coming up with bs like this so that for example they can just shrug off being pro neo-nazi and try to link democrats to neo-nazis.

And people still are: "Trump is so stupid he thinks Haitians eats cats and dogs!!"