A former aide to Donald Trump downplayed the significance of an explosive new report in The Atlantic that the former president said he needed the "kind of generals that [Adolf] Hitler had."
Trump's one-time chief of staff retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, who also served as Trump's Homeland Security secretary and a critic of the former president since leaving the administration, told The Atlantic that "when Trump raised the subject of 'German generals,' Kelly responded by asking, '‘Do you mean Bismarck’s generals?’' He went on: 'I mean, I knew he didn’t know who Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War. I said, ‘Do you mean the Kaiser’s generals? Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals? And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.’ I explained to him that [Erwin] Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler.' Kelly told me Trump was not acquainted with Rommel."
Marc Lotter joined CNN's "Outfront" with anchor Erin Burnett on Tuesday evening and said he doesn't think the report will have much impact on undecided and independent voters.
"I don't really," he said. "Obviously John Kelly has said a lot of things about Donald Trump over the years. A lot of those have been disproven or pushed back on by a number of different people who were in the room. A lot of the things that are coming out in this report tonight are being pushed back on from the chief of staff at the White House, the Pentagon's chief of staff and as you pointed out earlier the victim's ... sister who pushed back against this reporting."
Lotter classified the report as "more clutter" two weeks before the election.
"If you're still undecided in this election right now, and that's 3, 4, 5 percent, I think it's because you wanted Kamala Harris to give you a reason to vote for her. She can't do it," said Lotter, pointing to inflation and border security.
At the close of a Latino Americans for Trump town hall at Donald Trump’s Miami golf club on Tuesday, MAGA pastors, including one whose “messy” divorce led him to be labeled a “charlatan,” laid hands on the criminally convicted ex-president, described the election as a “war between good and evil,” fervently prayed for God to return Trump to the White House, and asked Him to “Make America Godly again.”
Trump’s return to embracing Christianity and invoking religion comes amid debunked reports, including from top Trump activist Charlie Kirk, that Vice President Kamala Harris last week kicked out “Christians” for shouting “Jesus is lord” at a recent campaign event.
Harris at a Wisconsin rally had told supporters, “Donald Trump hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade, and they did as he intended.”
“Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally,” Harris responded, to applause. “No, I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that as the hecklers were escorted out they shouted “Jesus is Lord.”
Not according to Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA and a member of the highly-secretive far-right organization Council for National Policy.
So when a pro-Trump pastor laid hands on the ex-president Tuesday afternoon, the roomful of conservative Latinos likely understood what he meant when he prayed, “Today where we lift up the man that we believe you’ve put your hand upon, to help restore America, and bring America back to the place that honors you. To a place where we will not be kicked out for saying ‘Christ the king.’ Or, ‘Jesus is Lord.'”
The Harris hecklers were not kicked out for saying, “Jesus is Lord,” but that is now what many MAGA Republicans now believe — or at least are willing to say.
Another pastor at Trump’s Latinos for Trump town hall in his prayer described the 2024 presidential election as a “war.”
“As I was talking yesterday to the, uh, in North Carolina,” Miami MAGA megachurch pastor and televangelist Guillermo Maldonado said, “I mentioned the people the fact that this is not a war between the left and the right. This is a war between good and evil.”
Pastor Maldonado was the subject of a 2021 Miami Herald opinion piece titled: “Pastor was a charlatan, but few cared as long as he hosted Trump, pushed GOP agenda.”
“Long before divorce documents spilled tantalizing secrets about the wealth of Miami megachurch pastor Guillermo Maldonado — and his wife’s accusations of emotional abuse — there were signs he was a charlatan. ‘The presence of the living God,’ the evangelical preacher called President Trump, who, on the campaign trail, stood steps away from him looking like he was trying to stifle a good laugh, while beaming at the obsequious praise.”
A separate Miami Herald article reports, “The booming business of Miami pastor Guillermo Maldonado, which helps him pay for what court records describe as a half-dozen properties, at least three cars and a nine-seat jet, depends entirely on whether he can speak to God.”
Maldonado’s wife’s divorce attorneys, the Herald reported, “said there could be as much as $120 million at stake.”
In December of 2020 Pastor Maldonado urged his congregation to refuse the COVID vaccine, The Christian Post reported, saying the shot was “the structure for the Antichrist.”
“They’re going to demand for you to have the vaccine in your passport. Otherwise you will not be able to travel because they are preparing the way. And the vaccines, they are made to alter your DNA,” he said. “Believe in the blood of Jesus. Believe in divine immunity.”
Maldonado also “said the Lord spoke to him and told him that there is a ‘satanic agenda, a global agenda, specifically preparing the way for the Antichrist.'”
On Tuesday, Pastor Maldonado, laying hands on Trump, ended his prayer saying, “the Bible says that let’s pray for the will of God to come. Meaning, what’s the will of God, the Bible says, God sets up kings. He removes kings.”
“We’re gonna bring the will of God and we’re gonna pray for the president for President Trump to be the next 47th president.”
After the pastors laid hands on Trump and prayed over him, he appeared to say nothing as “YMCA” played and he began signing autographs.
Pastor at Trump's round table: “This is not a war between the left and the right. This is a war between good and evil…In the Old Testament, the prophets anointed the kings…Father, we anointed him to be the 47th president of the United States to restore the biblical values.” pic.twitter.com/MgcV7UgjDA — Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) October 22, 2024
Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) was on hand Tuesday to discuss a bombshell report from The Atlantic about Donald Trump reneging on his promise to pay for a murdered soldier's funeral.
The world was shocked by the 2020 report about Army private Vanessa Guillén by another soldier, Aaron David Robinson, who bludgeoned her to death and then hid her dismembered, burned remains on the Fort Hood base. It was two months before they were discovered.
Guillén told friends and family that Robinson, a superior, sexually harassed her. She didn't report it because she feared what might happen to her, as claims were supposed to go through people like Robinson. The killer fled police and shot himself when he was ultimately cornered.
In June 2020, Trump said he would help pay for Guillén's funeral. When the bill arrived, however, Trump was angry and shocked by the amount.
“It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a f---ing Mexican!” Trump yelled. He then demanded that the bill not be paid because they were "trying to rip me off."
McCaskill pointed to the timeline as being a key part of the story.
"When he promised a family he would take care of their funeral expenses, that was before the election," said McCaskill. "That was in April of 2020. When he said, 'I'm not going to pay to bury the f-ing Mexican,' that was after he had lost in December."
She told viewers "to remember, he'll say anything before an election, but his true character comes out after the election."
"They're pulling the thread from the very beginning when he shocked us all by looking down his nose at John McCain for being a prisoner of war all the way through his presidency when he would not embrace those who had been wounded in war, would not risk his hairdo for visiting those who had sacrificed, made the ultimate sacrifice for the world's freedom," she said.
This is what is consistent about Trump, she concluded.
A North Carolina man seeking "no tax on beer" said he trusted Donald Trump with his vote because the former president "doesn't lie — at least not all the time."
Outside Trump's event Tuesday in Greensboro, Right Side Broadcasting Network host Christina Loren asked the man why he "loved" the former president and his rallies.
"Because he speaks the truth, and he doesn't lie, at least not all the time," the man replied as Loren laughed uncomfortably.
"Hey, nobody's perfect," the host said. "What did you do before you retired?"
"Uh, damn, I forgot," the man remarked. "So in other words, I haven't worked for a while."
"So that Social Security check that you get every month is important," Loren noted.
"Yes, it is," the man agreed, saying that his check barely covered rent and utilities. "And then anything else I can spend on, you know, food, water, food prices going up."
"You know, that no tax on Social Security, it's going to provide you with relief," Loren claimed, referring to Trump's proposed plan.
"Well, I hope it don't tax beer either," her guest opined. "I say no tax on beer. I'll give him two votes."
"Donald Trump is a 78-year-old billionaire who hasn't stopped whining about his problems since he came down that golden escalator nine years ago," Obama said.
He rattled off a list of Trump-branded products the ex-president is hocking to supporters before implying Trump is nothing more than a wannabe dictator.
"He's out there giving two-hour speeches. It's like Fidel Castro; he just keeps on talking," Obama said. "It's just word salads."
Obama recalled the town hall meeting, saying that he remembered doing "many" in his time.
"My experience is the goal of the town hall meeting is you meet with your constituents, with citizens, with voters, you answer their questions. He decided, no, I'm not going to answer questions anymore. Let's just play music for half an hour," Obama mocked. "So he's standing there and he's swaying to 'Ave Maria' and 'YMCA.'"
"She's standing there with this weird look on her face like she doesn't really know what's going on," he said. "It's like a hostage video. Can you imagine if Tim did that or Kamala did that or I did that? Now, our playlist would be better. But — it would be. But you would say to yourself, this is odd behavior."
Obama continued on, mocking Trump's bizarre behavior, such as calling himself the father of IVF.
"I have no idea what that means," said Obama. "You don't either."
An outraged former Republican lawmaker Tuesday argued former President Donald Trump is not playing 3D campaign chess — he's just triggering racism.
Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) roared rebukes during his short appearance on CNN Tuesday when he was asked about the underlying meaning of the Republican presidential nominee's recent lewd and bombastic rhetoric.
"He's trying to scare the hell out of the American people," Walsh said. "That's still the realm of the coin in right-wing media is to anger their audience and scare their audience and inflame their audience and p--- off their audience."
Walsh, a former conservative shock jock, admitted this was a tactic he used himself as he attempted to, as he described it, manipulate a broken political system.
"He's appealing to the very worst of us, he's appealing to our fears," Walsh said. "Fear works — my fear is this appeal of his is going to work."
At the time, Walsh predicted Trump's attacks on Mexicans crossing the border would see him lead in the polls within weeks, Keilar noted.
"Are the dynamics any different now than they were in 2015?" she asked.
Walsh doubled down on the assertion that fear tactics work and cast blame on the mainstream media for assuming such rhetoric only appealed to Trump's MAGA base.
"He's appealing well beyond his base to white, Black and brown voters who are scared and concerned about immigration and crime and threats with our economy," said Walsh.
"He thinks that he can win through fear, and he probably can, because more Americans are really ... scared and more concerned about immigration now than they were three to four years ago."
Walsh had a single source for the cause of that mounting fear.
"The whole migrant thing that cats and dogs, they're eating pets, that's just to make people think that brown and Black people are coming after you," Walsh said. "And there are a lot of Americans, Brianna, sadly that that will work with."
It was at that point Walsh's video audio cut out. Keilar thanked Walsh for coming on the show and said of his analysis, "you were brilliant."
Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump admitted that former President Donald Trump's recent visit to a Pennsylvania McDonald's was a political stunt after he was criticized for not wearing a hairnet while serving fries.
During an interview on Newsmax, host Bianca de la Garza told Lara Trump that Republicans had more "joy" than Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign.
"I think that that is why you've seen so many people move in Donald Trump's direction," Lara Trump agreed. "Well, Donald Trump was having a great time at a McDonald's, working the fryer there, putting extra fries in for people, handing them out through the drive-through window."
"Kamala Harris could never have gone in there and done this sort of thing and actually had the same impact as Donald Trump, and she knows it," she continued. "And that's why you see the left so upset about this. And they're saying, he didn't work the whole shift. It wasn't a full shift at McDonald's.
"I saw somebody say he wasn't wearing a hairnet. Everybody knows that this was a political stunt. Yeah, but it was fun and it was lighthearted."
The Newsmax host accused Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) of taking "cheap shots" at the former president over his McDonald's "costume."
"They are making fun of us. It's not a costume. It's a uniform," the host said.
"Yeah, and it's just gross," Lara Trump complained. "So when you hear people go out there and try to knock somebody for a retail politics-type stop, like at a McDonald's, I think it's ridiculous."
Donald Trump complained Tuesday that the value of his property in San Francisco takes a hit every time he complains that the city has become "unlivable."
Speaking to a Latino round table in Miami, Florida, that was supposed to be about immigration, the former president veered onto a familiar attack on Kamala Harris, claiming that her time as San Francisco's attorney general left the city crime-ridden and run-down.
Trump owns real estate in the city, including a flagship building at 555 California Street.
"It's very costly," Trump began as he complained about the hit on his pocket. "But I don't care, because this is a much higher calling.
"I hurt the value of my property tremendously when I say this, but it's almost unlivable now with crime and all of the things that are happening."
Trump repeated one of his favorite lines from Bob Tisch, part owner of the New York Giants who died in 2005. He said he loved the city of San Francisco, but that it had "gone to hell."
“It was a great surprise to hear that,” said Laurie Tisch, his daughter. “ ... To the best of my knowledge, I never heard my father say anything like that.”
Trump added that immigration was a big part of crime in the city and elsewhere. The statement has been repeatedlydebunked.
That's according to The Bulwark's Will Saletan, who says, "I watched all his rallies so you don't have to. Here's what he's been saying. Point by point, it fits the textbook definition of fascism."
Saletan published an 18-point piece supporting his assertion that "Donald Trump is running the most openly fascist campaign ever undertaken by a major-party nominee for president of the United States."
"In 2021, Trump used violence to try to overturn an election; in 2022, he called for terminating the Constitution. Now, on the brink of returning to power, Trump is reaffirming his intent to take America deeper into autocracy," Saletan writes.
He adds that Trump's agenda, "political violence, suspension of the Constitution, suspension of civil liberties, unchecked presidential power, censorship of the media, imprisonment of opposition leaders, execution of people for nonviolent crimes, and legal immunity for the president and his thugs—isn’t just close to fascism. It is fascism. It’s what fascists have advocated and practiced in other countries."
Here are the first ten of Saletan's 18 reasons why Trump is a fascist:
"1. He says he’s legally immune to all current charges against him."
"2. He claims the right to do whatever he wants as president."
"3. He advocates 'one really violent day' of police action."
"4. He vows to indemnify police against 'any prosecutions' for doing what he wants."
"5. He threatens to use the military against 'the enemy within.'"
"6. He says some of his political opponents shouldn’t be allowed to run for office."
"7. He says he could have jailed Hillary Clinton."
"8. He has called for jailing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer."
"9. He has accused Harris of murder."
"10. He vows to prosecute anyone who, in his view, has 'cheated' in an election."
The Atlantic's Ronald Brownstein, who is also a senior CNN political analyst, calls it "a remarkably comprehensive list...of the ways Trump is now threatening to overturn the rule of law to indemnify his allies & attack his opponents."
In a companion video, Saletan further supports his charges.
"That's the enemy, I guess, that maybe is the enemy from within as I talk about," Trump said. "We have an enemy from within."
The room broke out in applause.
The former president has repeated this phrase many times in the past weeks and each time has added a new layer to his concept of internal enemies.
In September, Trump claimed without evidence that Democrats were responsible for multiple attempts on his life.
"It is called the enemy from within," the former president declared. "They are the real threat."
Trump then told Fox News viewers on Oct. 13 he worried about peace on Election Day considering the state of the "radical left."
"We have some sick people, radical left lunatics," Trump said. "It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military...The enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries."
"And it is the enemy from within," Trump said. "And they're very dangerous. They're Marxists and communists and fascists. And they're sick...This is a guy like Adam Schiff, because they made up the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax."
On Monday, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) defended the sincerity of his running mate's threats to use U.S. military during yet another interview on Fox News.
"He's not just running on slogans," Vance said. "When people ask him questions, he speaks from the heart."
On Tuesday, Trump appeared to hurl the phrase at the Defense department whom he accused of purposefully leaking classified information about Israel’s plans for retaliation against Iran.
A subsequent investigation has yet to reveal whether the documents were obtained through an intentional leak or a hack, according to multiple reports.
Harris' campaign did not provide context for Tuesday's claim when it shared video on X with the message, "Trump says Americans who don’t support him are “the enemy within."
The co-hosts of "The View" said on Tuesday that one of the reasons Donald Trump is talking about bizarre things is that he can't address actual issues.
Over the weekend, Trump ranted about the late golfer Arnold Palmer's genitalia — a comment that promoted shock and concern among critics already questioning the ex-president's sanity.
But the co-hosts of "The View" argued such bizarre outbursts are his only option.
"While the Harris campaign focuses on issues at stake in this election, you know who is pretending to work at a drive-through and focusing on different issues?" asked Sara Haines.
"Is all this noise a distraction from the threat he's posing?" Whoopi Goldberg asked. "Because Speaker [Mike] Johnson, this poor thing, he says that [voters] want a change and that's what they see in Donald Trump, so he's having fun at the rallies, so he says things that are 'off the cuff.'"
"I'm sorry," Goldberg continued, "that's not off the cuff. That's not locker room — that's just downright disrespect for Arnold Palmer."
Sunny Hostin called it "crass."
But it was his former aide, Alyssa Farah Griffin, who claimed it's part of Trump's strategy to "throw so much out there and see what voters pay attention to."
"I feel like there's a lot of coverage of the silly, ridiculous things he says, like Arnold Palmer's package, but then there's less talk about Mike Johnson, who got owned by Jake Tapper pretending Donald Trump didn't refer to the enemy within. Then Donald Trump doubled down and said this is about America. That matters to us."
Haines noted most people don't comment on other peoples' genitalia.
"Women see this, they're voting on serious issues. They're here voting on the autonomy of their bodies," Haines said.
A fed-up CNN anchor cut away from former President Donald Trump's campaign event Tuesday to complain about blatant falsehoods and incoherent rambling.
Jim Acosta cut live coverage from a Latino roundtable event at Trump National Doral to share his views on the Republican presidential nominee's commentary.
"That is former president Donald Trump holding what is being described as a Latino roundtable in Miami," Acosta said. "Although as you just heard a few moments ago, it was sort of a rambling, incoherent stream of consciousness."
In the approximate 75 seconds before Acosta cut away from Trump, the former president touched the following subjects: the number of days left until the election, his opinion that Vice President Kamala Harris is "lazy as hell," whether Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was more liberal than Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) (to whom he referred only as "Pocahontas"), why the media has not interviewed Harris' father, the state of the modern press, and the Atlanta Constitution.
"Who the hell takes off?" Trump began. "We have 14 days left. And she'll take a couple of more days off too, you know why? She's lazy as hell and she's got that reputation. She's a radical left lunatic. She's further left than Bernie Sanders or Pocahontas. Now, Pocahontas, because I think, is Pocahontas, Rick, is Pocahontas further left than Bernie? Just about, right? It's close. It's close. Who the hell cares right? Rick says, 'Eh, I don't know.' But they're out there. But she's, but she's furthest left. We can't have a person, she's a Marxist. Her father's a Marxist professor, by the way. The fake news, look at all of them, where's the father? We should interview because I'd find it interesting to see what he has to say. I don't know, they seem to have a problem, but it would be nice to interview the father. He's a Marxist professor and I think that's okay. that's good, fine. but I think it's appropriate that the father be interviewed by the fake news. They don't want to interview him and I wonder why. If we had a real press in this country, this wouldn't even be a race. And I'm not sure it is a race anyway. They just came out with the Atlanta constitution—"
Acosta and CNN fact checker Daniel Dale then proceeded to provide viewers with a lengthy fact check — noting the former president far outpaces his political opponent for falsehoods.
"She's not a Marxist, obviously she's not lazy as hell," Acosta said. "She was a district attorney in San Francisco, attorney general in California, senator from California, and Vice President. You can't really be lazy as hell if you're doing all of those things."
Dale then checked Trump on his claim that Harris was taking the day off from her campaign.
"She is off the campaign trail in terms of rallies, also taping two pretty high-profile interviews," he said. "She's not on the beach."
Dale said Trump presented fact checkers quite the challenge as he stacked up tens of thousands of falsehoods and misleading statements.
"We're seeing just a deluge on things like FEMA and migrants, about immigration, about the legitimacy of American elections," Dale said. "We're very busy with Mr. Trump right now to a far greater extent than we're busy with Vice President Harris."
A massive new study finds a large number of Republicans, Trump supporters, and conservatives support violence under the guise of saving the country or ensuring the "rightful" leader is put in the White House.
Three in 10 Republicans (29%) believe "true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country," according to the nonprofit and nonpartisan research organization PPRI's "2024 American Values Survey."
Nearly one in four MAGA Republicans (23%) "say that if Trump loses the election, he should declare the results invalid and do whatever it takes to assume office." That view is also held by nearly one in five (19%) Republicans overall, including those who do not support Trump.
MAGA Republicans, or "Republicans who view Trump favorably" are three times as likely as those who hold unfavorable views [of Trump] to support political violence (32% vs. 11%).
More than one in five Republicans (22%) agree that “if the 2024 presidential election is compromised by voter fraud, everyday Americans will need to ensure the rightful leader takes office, even if it requires taking violent actions.”
The study also looked at the politico-religious component of support for political violence, and found one-third (33%) of "Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers" agree that "true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country."
Additionally, one-third of Latter-day Saints (33%) and nearly one in three white evangelical Protestants (28%) "agree that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country."
Where Americans get their news appears to be a factor in their views on issues including violence and immigration.
"Americans who trust conservative news outlets are the most likely to support political violence (41%), followed by 30% of those who most trust Fox News, 18% of those who do not watch any TV news, and 13% of those who most trust mainstream TV news."
Six in ten Republicans (61%) agree that "immigrants entering the country illegally today are poisoning the blood of our country," PRRI's survey finds, along with a "majority of Americans who most trust far-right news (70%) or Fox News (65%)."
Similarly, nearly two-thirds of Republicans (65%) support the “Great Replacement Theory,” and agree that "immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background." PRRI also finds that the "vast majority of far-right news (83%) and Fox News viewers (66%) agree with this theory," as do the majority of Christian nationalism Adherents and Sympathizers (63%) and white evangelical Protestants (62%), as well as half (50%) of Latter-day Saints.
"Nearly eight in 10 Republicans (79%) favor putting undocumented immigrants in encampments," PRRI also found. "The vast majority of Americans who most trust far-right news (91%) or Fox News (82%) favor militarized encampments for undocumented immigrants."
"White evangelical Protestants (75%) are most likely to favor militarized encampments for undocumented immigrants, followed by the majority of white Catholics (61%), white mainline/non-evangelical Protestants (58%), and Latter-day Saints (56%)."
"I've been doing this for 20 years, and these answers ... are keeping me up at night," PRRI president and founder Robert P. Jones told Axios. "It's all pretty dark and worrisome."
Axios had reported: "The growing number of Republicans willing to shun democratic norms — and possibly embrace violence — comes as Trump continues to falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen from him and is saying the 2024 election is already rigged."
"Jones said those supporting the loser of the election doing whatever it takes to assume office are essentially endorsing a coup against the United States."
Last week, Jones told MSNBC's Joy Reid (video below), "There are [survey] questions that we have had to write during the Trump era as social scientists that I never thought we would have to write.
"So to write that question and put it on a public opinion survey and say, we actually need to know what the American people think about this statement, that whether immigrants are poisoning the blood of the country, right, is just, I think we just pause for a minute, to say how astonishing that is."
He added, "We're all taught to kind of not be knee-jerk and kind of use the Nazi analogy...but like, 'poisoning the blood' — Mein Kampf uses the word blood 150 times," referring to Adolf Hitler's autobiographical manifesto.
"That's Hitler's word, right? And it's often, it's almost always used in this way, this kind of idea of purity and defilement, contamination, and it's a politics of disgust that we're really seeing here."
