'I could have used a tad bit more of a fascist Trump': Campaign adviser urges president to embrace authoritarianism

A top strategist for President Donald Trump's re-election campaign doesn't think the president has been "fascist" enough.

Trump's approval has plummeted since federal agents used tear gas to clear protesters from a park so he could pose for photos holding a Bible, but campaign’s new senior adviser for strategy Steve Cortes wishes the president had cracked down harder, reported The Daily Beast.

“If Trump were the fascist that they pretend that he is, wouldn’t he have cracked down much, much harder on the unrest in the American streets?” Cortes said on the June 25 episode of his self-titled radio program. “To be quite honest, you know, when there were people being bloodied, cops being attacked, businesses being smashed, I could have used a tad bit more of a fascist Trump.”

Cortes, a frequent cable news guest and former spokesman for the pro-Trump America First Action SuperPAC, has been fanning racist and anti-Semitic conspiracies on his radio program to encourage Trump to use authoritarian force.

“I think this is incredibly important that we talk about George Soros and others,” Cortes said on the June 9 episode of his show. “There are some very powerful, very well-financed actors, both individuals and groups, on the left, who have decided that they are going to use Black Lives Matter as their vehicle, as their vehicle to achieve — and I really don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this—to achieve a nullification, really, of America, of our founding principles.”