‘It IS an Appeal To White Supremacists!’ CNN Anchor and Analysts Pile On ‘Fascist Nazi’ Trump Rally

CNN anchor Jim Acosta and his panel tore into former President Donald Trump over what Acosta called “an appeal to White Supremacists” after Trump used Nazi-echoing language at a rally.

Trump came under fire in October for a passage in his Veterans Day speech in New Hampshire that drew widespread comparisons to the likes of Adolf Hitler, as well as for another rant in which he told an interviewer immigrants were “poisoning the blood” of our country.

In that context, Trump delivered another such rant at a rally in Durham, New Hampshire on Saturday.

On Saturday’s edition of CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta, Acosta was joined by CNN analyst Ron Brownstein and author Ruth Ben-Ghiat to discuss the new rant, after a tease in which Acosta called it “an appeal to white supremacists”:

ACOSTA: All right. In the meantime, former President Donald Trump is again making some very incendiary comments about immigrants, talking about immigrants poisoning the blood of this country. He used that kind of rhetoric earlier today in New Hampshire. Why it sounds like an appeal to white supremacist because in many cases, it is an appeal to white supremacists. That’s next.

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ACOSTA: Another Trump rally, more attacks from former president Donald Trump on immigrants. Here he was earlier today in New Hampshire.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP: They are poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they have done. They poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They’re pouring into our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Let’s discuss more now with CNN senior political analyst and senior editor at “The Atlantic,” Ron Brownstein and NYU history professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat. She’s the author of the book “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present.”

Guys, thanks to both of you. Ruth, I’m glad to have you back on the program. Let me start with you. You’ve studied fascist rhetoric, autocrats, authoritarian leaders. You and I have talked about this subject many times. What was your reaction when you heard what Trump had to say earlier today?

RUTH BEN-GHIAT: This is, you know, this is fascist rhetoric. The worries about polluting the blood of the superior race go as a standard of Nazism. It’s not just the Nazis. It’s also fascists. In Italy Mussolini literally talked about killing rats, to go back to Trump’s use of vermin in an earlier speech. He talked about killing rats who were bringing infectious diseases and communism into Italy.

So, you know, this is fascist rhetoric and he’s using it for a very precise purpose. But we also want to, you know, ask why he’s using it now so often. And unfortunately, the Trump campaign has made it very clear what they want to do to immigrants. You know, mass deportations, mass detentions, likely abuses and violence in those operations.

And, you know, dehumanizing immigrants, which is what this language does, is a way to get Americans prepared now to accept these repressions later on. That’s what’s so terrible, and that’s also another thing that’s so fascist about this.

ACOSTA: Ron, I mean, help us look at the big picture here if you can. I mean, obviously, the electoral concerns, I mean, for the Republicans. It’s hard to imagine swing voters in places like suburban Philadelphia or Michigan, Wisconsin, gravitating to this kind of language after they’ve already rejected it before. I mean, this is something that asserted Trump in previous elections.

Why do you suppose, as Ruth was saying, he keeps going back to this? He’s been doing a lot of this lately out on the campaign trail.

RON BROWNSTEIN: Yes, well, first of all, it’s great to be on with both of you. And like many people, I’ve learned a lot on these issues in the last few years from Professor Ben-Ghiat so I’m really glad to be here with you.

Look, the big picture is that the U.S. faces a situation that I believe we have not been in since arguably the two decades before the Civil War. I mean, you really have to go back I think to John Calhoun’s dominance and the South’s dominance in the Democratic Party in the 1840s and 1850s to look at the last time the dominant faction in one of our two parties was not committed to American democracy, as we have understood it and practiced it throughout our history.

And this is an extraordinarily challenging and in many ways, ominous situation for the country whatever happens in the 2024 election. Trump has shown there is an audience in the Republican coalition, in particular, for all of these kinds of arguments. You know, in polls while he was president 90 percent of Republicans said Christianity in the U.S. is under attack. Three-quarters said that discrimination against whites is now as big a problem as discrimination against minorities.

And in multiple polls, Jim, 55 percent to 60 percent of Republicans said the traditional way of American life is disappearing so fast that true patriots may have to use force to preserve it. So there is an audience for this. But as you know, there is also a substantial audience that’s been mobilized in three consecutive elections to prevent this vision from being implemented. And you know, we are in a position now where a majority of voters are unhappy about the economy, discontented about Biden, maybe think he’s too old to run for another term, but it’s a very different proposition to say that most Americans in the end will be able to — would be willing to empower someone talking so explicitly as the professor said echoing fascist leaders from the darkest moments of the 20th century.

I’ve said to you before and I believe again, Trump throws Biden lifelines every day. Voters are unhappy with the way things are going in the country, but that doesn’t mean they are willing to go in this direction either.

Watch above via CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta.