‘Echoes Of Hitler And Mussolini’: CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Sounds Alarm Over Trump’s Vermin Speech — Especially The Hitler Part

CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins raised alarm bells about former President Donald Trump’s “vermin” remarks, repeatedly noting their similarity to language used by Adolf Hitler and noting a key fact: the statement was pre-planned, not off-the-cuff.

Trump is under fire for a passage in his Veterans Day speech in New Hampshire that many — including President Joe Biden’s senior advisers — see as echoing the likes of Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

“We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within,” Trump said.

On Monday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins opened her show with a blistering summation of Trump’s comments that repeatedly referenced Hitler, and called out the Trump campaign’s “doubling down” response.

And in noting the escalating pattern of Trump’s rhetoric, Collins pointed out that this latest attack was on the teleprompter:

Tonight, straight from THE SOURCE.

It’s language that echoes that of Hitler and Mussolini. But tonight, Donald Trump’s campaign is defending how he called his political opponents, “Vermin.”

…

It is becoming clearer, by the day, what a second term, for Donald Trump, would center around. Revenge, or as he often puts it, retribution. He’s spelling it out, clearly, for us, on camera, warning that it’s his political opponents he says, who are the most dangerous threat (ph) Russia or North Korea, his opponents.

For someone, who has long used similar language, to authoritarians and fascists, this weekend, in New Hampshire, Trump took things a step further.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, 45TH U.S. PRESIDENT: We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.

The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: You can see there, Trump appears to be reading from the prompter, not ad-libbing those remarks, where he vowed to root out his political opponents, like vermin. He also posted the same language, on social media, making it clear, he meant it.

The Biden campaign says that the former President and potentially Biden’s opponent, in 2024, is parroting the autocratic language, of Adolf Hitler, and Benito Mussolini. I should note that Hitler’s biographer once quoted the Nazi dictator as saying, “Should I not also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin?”

One person, who isn’t condemning Trump’s words, the Chairwoman of the Republican Party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONNA MCDANIEL, CHAIRWOMAN, RNC: I am not going to talk about candidates that are in a contested primary.

I am not going to comment on candidates and their campaign messaging.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: I should note, Trump’s campaign is pushing back, on these comparisons, to Hitler and Mussolini, doubling down, saying that those remarks, “those who try to make that ridiculous assertion, are clearly snowflakes grasping for anything… their entire existence will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.”

Spokesperson, who put that statement out, later clarified, and said that he meant to say, quote, “sad, miserable existence” instead of their “entire existence.”

This isn’t just language, by the way. There’s been a ton of reporting about plans that are underway, for a second Trump term, including from The New York Times, which says tonight that Trump is plotting, mass detention and the deportation of undocumented immigrants, should he regain power.

Trump promised, last week, to conduct quote, “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”

And not long ago, he said that undocumented immigrants were poisoning the blood of the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: It is a very sad thing for our country. It’s poisoning the blood of our country.

Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.