Republican strategist Scott Jennings stated Wednesday night during a CNN panel that he has “heard” comparisons of prominent Republicans to German dictator Adolf Hitler dating back to the George W. Bush administration. During a Wednesday press conference, Vice President Kamala Harris referenced an article in The Atlantic that claimed former President Donald Trump expressed a desire for generals akin to those who served under Hitler.
Jennings responded to Jamal Simmons, a former aide to Harris, by saying he was “calloused” to such Hitler comparisons. “Now, I’m calloused on this Hitler business because I lived through the Bush years and I used to peer out my window onto Pennsylvania Avenue and I saw everybody marching around in their brown uniforms, signs up, ‘Bush is Hitler, Bush is Hitler,’” Jennings said. “And then they did it to John McCain. They did it to Mitt Romney. They’ve done it to Donald Trump. Even did it to Paul Ryan, I recall at one point. So I’ve heard it all before.
Before citing Republicans whom Democrats had compared to the Nazi leader, Jennings pointed out that vulnerable Democratic senators are now emphasizing their ability to collaborate with Trump in the past as Harris fades. “It probably will shock Kamala Harris and the rest of her campaign staff to learn that there are incumbent Democrat U.S. senators in this country right now running television ads touting all their work with this modern-day Hitler,” Jennings said, later adding, “I mean, if he were really Hitler, if he were really a threat to democracy, not a single Democrat in this country would be running ads touting their work with Donald Trump.”
Jennings then remarked that anti-Israel protests on college campuses, where demonstrators made statements such as “resistance is justified” and chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”—a slogan that carries connotations of eliminating Israel—contributed to the perception that antisemitism was emanating from left-wing sources. “I think the reason Democrats are freaking out about it right now is because what they have learned is that it‘s not Republicans who are the Hitlers or the Nazis, it‘s actually emanating from within their own party,” Jennings said. “If you want to find Hitler-ish, Nazi-esque antisemitic tendencies, look on the left, not on the right.”
When Simmons claimed Jennings was trying to dodge the point about Trump, Jennings cut him off. “She literally spoke in front of the Naval Observatory today, ‘Trump is Hitler,’” Jennings said in reference to Harris.
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