Journalists failed to ask Democrats for any proof of the bizarre claim that former President Donald Trump intended to reenact an obscure 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden other than the fact that it was in a same building.
As Breitbart News noted, Democrats — starting with James Carville, then Hillary Clinton, then vice presidential nominee Tim Walz himself — claimed that Trump’s rally on Sunday evening was intended to evoke Nazi imagery.
Carville cited a rally in February 1939 by a pro-Nazi speaker. (He ignored the many anti-Nazi rallies at the same venue.) No connection between that rally and Trump’s rally was given — not even the date, many months apart.
When Clinton made the same claim, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins not only failed to ask her for proof, but appeared to agree, asking only whether the “fascist” message would actually reach voters Vice President Kamala Harris needed to win.
From the CNN transcript:
RODHAM CLINTON: … And one other thing that you’ll see next week, Kaitlan, is Trump actually reenacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939. I write about this in my book. President Franklin Roosevelt was appalled that neo-Nazis, fascists, in America, were lining up to essentially pledge their support for the kind of government that they were seeing in Germany. So, I don’t think we can ignore it. Now, it may be a leap for some people, and a lot of others may think, I don’t want to go there, I don’t want to say that. But please, open your eyes to the danger that this man poses to our country, because I think it is clear and present for anybody paying attention.
COLLINS: Yes, you write in your book about Lindbergh, and just how he was viewed in the U.S. as such a hero, and what that would have looked like, had Pearl Harbor not have happened. You’re looking back at the history of this country.
But to hear such a significant statement, like that one, from — you make a good point, not just people who’ve studied it, but from General Kelly, who worked very closely with Donald Trump. Obviously, General Milley did as well.
But I think when you hear that, and then you look at it from a campaign perspective, there have been people, who have said for years that they do believe Donald Trump has fascist tendencies, or is a fascist, just outright himself. I think the question is, does it reach voters that Harris needs to reach right now. What do you — how do you see that?
RODHAM CLINTON: I think that’s a fair question, Kaitlan, and I can’t wholly answer it.
The false claim of Nazism, belied by the fact that there were many Jews in the audience Sunday, colored the media’s coverage of the rally, which described the event as racist, even citing jokes by a comedian who was a warmup act.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
