In a rare joint statement regarding the presidential election, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urged Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris to refrain from labeling GOP nominee former President Trump as a “fascist.” The VP and many Democrats have not only used that term to describe Trump, but they also frequently compare him to Adolph Hitler, another figure who draws strong negative connotations.
“This summer, after the first attempted assassination of a presidential candidate in more than a century, President Biden insisted that ‘we can’t allow this violence to be normalized.’ In September, after President Trump escaped yet another close call, Vice President Harris acknowledged that ‘we all must do our part to ensure that this incident does not lead to more violence,'” the Republican legislative leaders wrote together, Fox News reported.
“These words have proven hollow. In the weeks since that second sobering reminder, the Democratic nominee for President of the United States has only fanned the flames beneath a boiling cauldron of political animus. Her most recent and most reckless invocations of the darkest evil of the 20th century seem to dare it to boil over. The Vice President’s words more closely resemble those of President Trump’s second would-be assassin than her own earlier appeal to civility,” they added, according to Fox.
Johnson and McConnell said that by calling Trump a “fascist,” Democrats were inviting another would-be assassin to take a shot at Trump before Election Day. “Vice President Harris may want the American people to entrust her with the sacred duty of executive authority. But first, she must abandon the base and irresponsible rhetoric that endangers both American lives and institutions. We have both been briefed on the ongoing and persistent threats to former President Donald Trump by adversaries to the United States, and we call on the Vice President to take these threats seriously, stop escalating the threat environment, and help ensure President Trump has the necessary resources to be protected from those threats.”
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compared Trump’s upcoming rally at New York City’s Madison Square Garden to the notorious Nazi rally that occurred in the arena in 1939. “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,” Clinton told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who never once challenged the former first lady, on Thursday night. “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,” Clinton continued. Like other Democrats, Clinton has chosen not to tout any of Harris’ policies or accomplishments and rather has relied on promoting her by saying, essentially, ‘she’s not Trump.’ But the former president continues to out-poll Harris on nearly every major election issue this cycle.
