Speaker 1: Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio Now.
Speaker 1: As Andrew Lawrence of Media Matters put it perfectly, the
Speaker 1: woke mob is coming after Hitler. The day after General
Speaker 1: John Kelly's confirmation to The Atlantic that Trump personally said
Speaker 1: to him that he wanted generals like Hitler's generals, no
Speaker 1: Republican condemned Trump, and several, like Governor Son who knew
Speaker 1: of New Hampshire, defended Trump in the same matter of
Speaker 1: fact condescending way the Germans and some Americans dismissed and
Speaker 1: defended Hitler literally a century ago. Well, he didn't really
Speaker 1: say it, and even if he did, he didn't really
Speaker 1: mean it. And even if he meant it, he really
Speaker 1: wouldn't try it, And even if he tried it, he
Speaker 1: really wouldn't get away with it. General Kelly needs to
Speaker 1: now hold a news conference, an open event, national Press
Speaker 1: Club in DC or wherever he can get a place
Speaker 1: cheap and lay it all out on the record in
Speaker 1: front of the cameras and the microphones for an hour
Speaker 1: or ninety minutes longer if he can get others from
Speaker 1: the Trump Reign of terror and error to join him there,
Speaker 1: And that is a possibility others. Selena Wong of ABC
Speaker 1: is quoting the former national security official Olivia Troy, who
Speaker 1: told her military leaders who have served in the Trump
Speaker 1: administration are weighing the following on whether to go on
Speaker 1: the record against Trump. Is it hurtful or helpful to
Speaker 1: the military, and does it politicize them even more? Troy
Speaker 1: also says these military leaders are naturally enough calculating the
Speaker 1: human equation. What risk does saying something put them at?
Speaker 1: What risk does it put their families at? And how
Speaker 1: how much exponentially higher does that risk become if Trump wins. Anyway,
Speaker 1: no offense meant with this. We may have been fetishizing
Speaker 1: the military since nine to eleven, but no one will
Speaker 1: deny that its people have a different kind of courage
Speaker 1: than the rest of us do, and as a baseline
Speaker 1: it is indelibly admirable. But the nation has never been
Speaker 1: at greater risk than it is right now, never including
Speaker 1: the Civil War. And that is even clearer if we
Speaker 1: are just talking about the military, because if Trump now wins,
Speaker 1: the military ceases to be what it has been since
Speaker 1: June fourteenth, seventeen seventy five, when the Continental Army was founded.
Speaker 1: It was founded as a force to defend this land
Speaker 1: and its people and its freedoms from tyranny, not to
Speaker 1: become an instrument by which a scumbag like Trump and
Speaker 1: the whole of little scumbags around him can enforce tyranny
Speaker 1: against America and Americans. That is the choice, General, a
Speaker 1: free America more or less, or an absolute dictatorship where you, sir,
Speaker 1: are expected to shoot Trump's American critics. Period. The more
Speaker 1: stars on a military man or woman's shoulders, the more
Speaker 1: you hear them talk about the privilege and responsibility of
Speaker 1: serving and defending this nation. Well, the price of the
Speaker 1: responsibility part has just come due. General Kelly, you had
Speaker 1: the guts to tell the Trump Hitler story on the
Speaker 1: record finally, and the fascism part on audio finally, and
Speaker 1: the Republicans like Chris Sinunu dismissed it and you as
Speaker 1: part of a political campaign and ultraliberalism. And Sinunu explained
Speaker 1: that we've all heard a lot of extreme things about
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and a lot of extreme things from Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of baked into the vote. And he says,
Speaker 1: the polls show nobody cares, and not once did it
Speaker 1: ever seem to register with this idiot Sununu or the
Speaker 1: other Republicans who even referenced this yesterday, that we are
Speaker 1: not talking about a vote, we are talking about death camps.
Speaker 1: And Sununu is left almost literally explaining that it's just
Speaker 1: the woke mob coming for Hitler and General and to
Speaker 1: the military leader, friends of Olivia, Troy, if that doesn't
Speaker 1: get you to sit down at Adias at the National
Speaker 1: Press Club and do as much for this country as
Speaker 1: if you were personally subduing the nine to eleven hijackers
Speaker 1: as they boarded the planes. Maybe this from the dumbest
Speaker 1: man in America. Brian Kilmead from Fox News, gradually building
Speaker 1: his rationalization to the point where he comes this close
Speaker 1: to saying that, yeah, maybe Trump shouldn't have mentioned Hitler,
Speaker 1: but it's not like he was wrong about Hitler, because
Speaker 1: certainly Hitler Generals did a lot of good things. Maybe
Speaker 1: this will get you onto that stage in front of
Speaker 1: those microphones. General, it's not your job to reign in
Speaker 1: the president. It's your job to do with the president wants.
Speaker 2: And then you factor in the fact that he runs
Speaker 2: his own company, coming from the business world, the first
Speaker 2: one we've ever had it's not even a public company.
Speaker 2: And then he obviously has frustration, and I could absolutely
Speaker 2: see him going, now, you know what, it would be
Speaker 2: great to have German generals that actually do what we
Speaker 2: ask them to do, knowing that's maybe not fully being
Speaker 2: cognizant of the third rail of German general's we're Nazis
Speaker 2: and whatever.
Speaker 1: Great general's bad boss, General Kelly, we aren't an inflection
Speaker 1: point right now as certainly as we were at Yorktown
Speaker 1: or Gettysburg or Normandy, except that with just words you
Speaker 1: can prevent the bloodshed that will happen not on one battlefield,
Speaker 1: at home or abroad, but in every quarter of this
Speaker 1: nation to some great degree or just to some small degree,
Speaker 1: because bloodshed and the threat of it will be the
Speaker 1: essence of a Trump dictatorship. And bluntly, General, you helped
Speaker 1: get us here because while you were witnessing this madman
Speaker 1: in real time yearned for a military personally sworn to
Speaker 1: him as the Wehrmacht was to Hitler, you said nothing. Then, well,
Speaker 1: now you are talking, and the test of your patriotism,
Speaker 1: to say nothing of the test of the chance for
Speaker 1: this nation to still exist five years from now in
Speaker 1: something like its current form depends on you winning the
Speaker 1: Battle of Trump, because I don't know where you were
Speaker 1: on Saturday October twentieth, nineteen seventy three. Your biography says
Speaker 1: you had gone into the reserves, so in your early
Speaker 1: twenties you could finish your degree at UMass Boston. So
Speaker 1: maybe you watched the Special Watergate Council Archibald Cox's press
Speaker 1: conference that afternoon at the National Press Club, where Cox
Speaker 1: spoke so modestly, so bluntly, so self abnegatingly about the
Speaker 1: crimes of Richard Nixon that he not only broke Nixon
Speaker 1: and precipitated Nixon's infamous Saturday Night massacre, firing Cox, forcing
Speaker 1: the resignations of the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General
Speaker 1: hours later when they wouldn't fire Cox. Cox not only
Speaker 1: did that, but more importantly, his honesty, his patriotism was
Speaker 1: so obvious and unanswerable that when Nixon acted in a
Speaker 1: show of force that he was certain was going to
Speaker 1: win Watergate for him and make his opponents afraid of him,
Speaker 1: America instead sided with Archie Cox and the truth and
Speaker 1: the investigation, and Nixon that night became an ex president,
Speaker 1: waiting to happen. General Kelly, this country may be too
Speaker 1: far gone for one man to make a public creed
Speaker 1: decur or twenty of them to make them, and for
Speaker 1: that to save the nation. But you right now are
Speaker 1: our best chance, and maybe our last chance before the election.
Speaker 1: Get up there and tell what you told. Jeffrey Goldberg
Speaker 1: of The Atlantic. Cite as many dates and details as
Speaker 1: you can put Trump's invoking of Hitler on the record.
Speaker 1: Tell them about Trump calling the American dead of World
Speaker 1: War One in France suckers and losers. Tell them. Tell
Speaker 1: them live on CNN, on MSNBC, on CBS, ABC, NBC,
Speaker 1: live on Fox, if Fox has the guts to do it,
Speaker 1: tell them what you told. My friend Michael Schmid of
Speaker 1: the New York Times.
Speaker 3: Too, And of course if you knows history. Again, I
Speaker 3: think he's lacking a man. But if you know what
Speaker 3: you know him, it was all about it. You would
Speaker 3: be pretty hard to make an argument that you did
Speaker 3: anything good.
Speaker 1: So what would you What would you say when he
Speaker 1: said to you that Hitler did a lot of good things?
Speaker 4: I tell him that, I said, yes, sir. If you
Speaker 4: first of all, you should never say that.
Speaker 3: But if you knew what mister Kila was all about
Speaker 3: from the beginning to the end.
Speaker 4: Uh. Everything he did was to one of his racist,
Speaker 4: fascist uh life you know, you know philosophy, so that
Speaker 4: nothing he did you could argue was good. It was
Speaker 4: certainly not done for the right reason.
Speaker 1: And he would occasionally say that. By the way, the
Speaker 1: New York Times put all that below the fold of
Speaker 1: the front page, under all the horse race stories and
Speaker 1: political strategy and polling. The way the Times coincidentally buried
Speaker 1: Watergate for a year until Archie Cox held his press
Speaker 1: conference fifty one years ago last Sunday, Do it general
Speaker 1: alert the media because the media is obviously no longer
Speaker 1: alert to threats, because the media has forgotten its oath,
Speaker 1: unofficial as it is, and especially because your oath, Sir,
Speaker 1: to serve this nation, and if need be, to save
Speaker 1: this nation, is neither unofficial nor forgotten. It is hard
Speaker 1: to believe that right now, in the rankings of nonpartisan
Speaker 1: patriotic service to this country, the ill fated former New
Speaker 1: York Times columnist William Crystal is far far ahead of
Speaker 1: The Times itself, and ahead of dozens of other terrified, lazy,
Speaker 1: and ultimately incompetent news outlets. Because just the headline of
Speaker 1: the column that Bill Crystal and Andrew Egger wrote for
Speaker 1: The Bulwark Reich Track Wrong Track, is gutsier than anything
Speaker 1: that's been in The New York Times in a decade,
Speaker 1: because they are recognizing what has been undeniable for at
Speaker 1: least a year, almost certainly for nine years, has been
Speaker 1: clearly true for thirty four years. Trump is our Hitler,
Speaker 1: not the nineteen forty Hitler, not nineteen thirty eight Hitler,
Speaker 1: but nineteen thirty two Hitler, the one who, had he
Speaker 1: been stopped then would not have destroyed Europe. The now
Speaker 1: is the last chance to prevent Hitler Hitler. That's who
Speaker 1: Trump has become. That's who Trump is today. And some
Speaker 1: of us have known this for thirty four years, since
Speaker 1: late in the summer of nineteen ninety, that is, when
Speaker 1: a writer named Marie Brenner published a profile of Trump
Speaker 1: and his first wife in Vanity Fair magazine. It is
Speaker 1: always useful to quote several paragraphs of this article in
Speaker 1: full September nineteen ninety quote Trump appears to take aspects
Speaker 1: of his German background seriously. John Walter works for the
Speaker 1: Trump Organization, and when he visits Donald in his office,
Speaker 1: Ivanna told a friend he clicks his heels and says
Speaker 1: Hyle Hitler, possibly as a family joke. Last April, perhaps
Speaker 1: in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivannah Trump told her
Speaker 1: lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband
Speaker 1: reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order,
Speaker 1: which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy
Speaker 1: now guards a copy of My New Order in a
Speaker 1: closet at his office as if it were a grenade.
Speaker 1: Hitler's speeches from his earliest days up through the Phony
Speaker 1: War of nineteen thirty nine reveal his extraordinary ability as
Speaker 1: a master propagandist. Did your cousin John give you the
Speaker 1: Hitler speeches, I asked Trump. Trump hesitated, who told you that?
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I said, Actually, it was my friend
Speaker 1: Marty Davis from Paramount, who gave me a copy of
Speaker 1: Mind comp and he's a Jew. I did give him
Speaker 1: a book about Hitler. Marty Davis said, but it was
Speaker 1: My New Order Hitler's speeches, not mine. COMF I thought
Speaker 1: he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but
Speaker 1: I'm not Jewish. Later, Trump returned to this subject, if
Speaker 1: I had these speeches, and I am not saying that
Speaker 1: I do. I would never read them. There was another
Speaker 1: quote in that Vanity Fair article from thirty four years ago,
Speaker 1: attributed to one of his attorneys. Donald the unnamed lawyer said,
Speaker 1: is a believer in the big lie theory. If you
Speaker 1: say something again and again, people will believe you. Nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: It was all there in nineteen ninety from I would
Speaker 1: never read these speeches to giving speeches even Bill Crystal
Speaker 1: recognizes as Hitlarian. This subject requires more time. I want
Speaker 1: to give this entire episode to it, because Trump is
Speaker 1: Hitler nineteen thirty two, and General Kelly has to hold
Speaker 1: that news conference because the evil of Trump and the
Speaker 1: threat he poses of re enacting all or part of
Speaker 1: the actual Nazi nightmare only here is accelerating and the
Speaker 1: days are down to a precious few. I ask, do
Speaker 1: you remember the shock of eleven months ago? It's like
Speaker 1: living next to a bad intersection where there's a car
Speaker 1: crash every hour and being asked about one specifically from
Speaker 1: November of last year, But from November of last year
Speaker 1: when Trump used one Hitlarian word and the critics recognized it,
Speaker 1: and when the critics erupted. Trump's spokesman vowed that for
Speaker 1: those critics quote, their entire existence will be crushed when
Speaker 1: Trump returns to the White House. Remember that I will
Speaker 1: continue from that point. That's next. This is countdown. Nearly
Speaker 1: a year ago, in a five day span in November,
Speaker 1: America seemed to be getting the point. Quote. Trump calls
Speaker 1: political enemies vermin, echoing dictators, Hitler, Mussolini. That was a
Speaker 1: headline in the Washington Post. Quote Trump compares political foes
Speaker 1: to vermin on Veterans Day, echoing Nazi propaganda. That was
Speaker 1: the headline in Forbes magazine. Quote it's a official with Vermin.
Speaker 1: Trump is now using straight up Nazi talk. That was
Speaker 1: the headline in The New Republic. Trump is Hitler. Quote.
Speaker 1: Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes,
Speaker 1: and their entire existence will be crushed when Trump returns
Speaker 1: to the White House. Unquote. That was the spokesman Stephen Chung.
Speaker 1: Later that day, Chung realized, or somebody realized for him,
Speaker 1: what he had actually said. Chung insisted he had intended
Speaker 1: to say, and their sad, miserable existence will be crushed
Speaker 1: when Trump returns to the White House, and that Chung
Speaker 1: or whoever thought that for him, thought the horrifying part
Speaker 1: of his threat was the word entire rather than the
Speaker 1: phrase existence will be crushed. That told us all we
Speaker 1: really needed to know that Trump and Stephen Chung and
Speaker 1: Steven Miller and all the others know exactly what they
Speaker 1: are saying and what it means and who they are paraphrasing.
Speaker 1: Moments after Chung's correction, Trump raised the stakes again. He
Speaker 1: sampled from another dictatorship, Jack Smith, Andrew Weissman, Lisa Monico,
Speaker 1: the team of losers and misfits from crewe and all
Speaker 1: the rest of the radical left zelots and thugs who
Speaker 1: have been working illegally for years to take me down
Speaker 1: will end up in a mental institution by the time
Speaker 1: my next term as president is successfully completed. Unquote, Trump wrote,
Speaker 1: forced psychiatric institutionalization was less the Nazis than it was
Speaker 1: the Soviets, But the Nazis happily gassed those they deemed
Speaker 1: mentally impaired, along with gassing everybody else. For a time
Speaker 1: after this, Trump seemed to understand that to keep spaces
Speaker 1: between his overt quotations of, and imitations of, and emulations
Speaker 1: of Hitler was his way to slip them past those
Speaker 1: who were looking for excuses to not believe that he
Speaker 1: was Hitler nineteen thirty two, or perhaps with his deteriorating mind,
Speaker 1: the spaces were inadvertent and simply accidentally protected him. But
Speaker 1: then something else happened. It was in September last year,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, in Dubuque in Iowa, when he began
Speaker 1: to get into the Nazi obsession with blood and genetics.
Speaker 1: It's in the genes, as he said last week, and
Speaker 1: how the outsiders, the Auschlanders, are poisoning our blood. He
Speaker 1: didn't call them Auschlanders, of course, he called them immigrants. Quote,
Speaker 1: it's the blood of our country. What they're doing is
Speaker 1: destroying our country. Then November ninth, twenty twenty three, inside
Speaker 1: the one year mark until the election, at one o
Speaker 1: three in the morning, quote, we are one movement, one people,
Speaker 1: one family, and one glorious nation. Sounds like he found
Speaker 1: that book that man Davis gave him. Huh. Last Veterans Day,
Speaker 1: at one twenty five in the afternoon, Trump wrote, in
Speaker 1: honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledged
Speaker 1: to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists,
Speaker 1: and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the
Speaker 1: confines of our country. The threat from outside forces is
Speaker 1: far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within.
Speaker 1: Minutes later at Claremont Ne, Hampshire, he liked that one
Speaker 1: so much he read it to the crowd on Veterans Day,
Speaker 1: veterans many of whom still alive, who actually fought to
Speaker 1: kill the last political strong man who talked about the
Speaker 1: communist vermin and how he would root them out Hitler,
Speaker 1: And now Trump was telling them about the communist vermin
Speaker 1: and how he would root them out. That was when
Speaker 1: Trump began to talk about the threat from within. Hitler
Speaker 1: had been more explicit, but not much. The enemy from
Speaker 1: within was Hitler's phrase, and by this past summer Trump
Speaker 1: had realized that the enemy from within, or the enemy within,
Speaker 1: was far better, and he took Hitler's phrase and he
Speaker 1: made that one his own. Trump advocates for conformity and
Speaker 1: suppression of descent. One people, one family, one glorious nation.
Speaker 1: For Hitler, it was a little bit more lyrical. One people,
Speaker 1: one realm, one leader. And then Trump moved to the
Speaker 1: sanguine imagery migrants poisoning the blood of our country. Hitler
Speaker 1: began with the evil nonsense of pure Aryan blood and
Speaker 1: ended by killing those who did not quote have unquote it.
Speaker 1: Trump's puppeteer, Stephen Miller, has revealed plans for quote vast
Speaker 1: holding facilities that would function as staging centers, built by
Speaker 1: the military and operated by Homeland Security, enabling quote Trump
Speaker 1: to unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement
Speaker 1: the most spectacular migration crackdown. Hitler's view was identical, his
Speaker 1: terminology simpler. He just called them concentration camps. Steven Miller's
Speaker 1: rapture at this idea underscores that we are not merely
Speaker 1: witnessing Trump using the latest in a decade's long list
Speaker 1: of bad advertising slogans for products that he will never deliver.
Speaker 1: He means it, they mean it, and as what John
Speaker 1: Kelly told us yesterday and the day before meant, they
Speaker 1: do not mean it, just rhetorically quote. Any activists who
Speaker 1: doubt Trump's resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error.
Speaker 1: Miller said, the immigration legal activists won't know what's happening.
Speaker 1: Then there is the question of how to make Trump's
Speaker 1: Hitlarian plans look legal. RUSS vote, The Project twenty twenty
Speaker 1: five architect helpfully mapped out how to turn the Apartment
Speaker 1: of Justice into a real life or Wellian and Hitlary
Speaker 1: in Revenge Factory. You don't need a statutory change at all,
Speaker 1: he said, you need a mindset change. You need an
Speaker 1: attorney general in a White House Counsel's office that don't
Speaker 1: view themselves as trying to protect the department from the president. Hm,
Speaker 1: who is that? They mentioned the other days on the
Speaker 1: short list for Trump's attorney general. His concierge judge in Florida,
Speaker 1: Aileen Cannon, an attorney general doesn't view themselves as trying
Speaker 1: to protect the department from the president. Well, she's got
Speaker 1: that down. RUSS vote, meanwhile, is now referenced by Axios
Speaker 1: as being behind a plan to apply this same idea
Speaker 1: to the military. Quote rigorously review all general and flag
Speaker 1: officer promotions to make sure the senior military officials line
Speaker 1: up with Trump's philosophies. In other words, John Kelly can
Speaker 1: go to Hell and all the other John Kelly's with
Speaker 1: him and drip by drip, just as in Nazi Germany,
Speaker 1: the evil grows and grows slowly, but certainly it's barely
Speaker 1: bigger than the last time you look. But it is bigger.
Speaker 1: This was all comparatively new a year ago. Then, weeks
Speaker 1: after the outlines of Project twenty twenty five became clear,
Speaker 1: the Washington Post first reported they were drafting plans to
Speaker 1: potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on Trump's first day in office,
Speaker 1: to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.
Speaker 1: The military General Kelly, that would be, you go out
Speaker 1: and shoot some American civilians. The more unarmed, the better.
Speaker 1: That's your choice. Get up and speak or get out
Speaker 1: and shoot. And of course Trump and Stephen Miller waiting
Speaker 1: for the bell to ring, quoting the New York Times,
Speaker 1: because Trump plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants
Speaker 1: and deport people by the millions per year. The newest
Speaker 1: version of this promise, obviously is fifteen million in US total.
Speaker 1: And as I first pointed out in twenty sixteen, we
Speaker 1: really do need to remember that it's not as if
Speaker 1: non immigrants wouldn't try to stop this, And of course
Speaker 1: when they did try to stop it, they would go
Speaker 1: to those vast holding facilities that would function as staging
Speaker 1: centers along with the migrants, those vast holding facilities that
Speaker 1: are just camps, camps with concentration concentration camps. It must
Speaker 1: also be caveated that Trump to some degree tried to
Speaker 1: do this in twenty seventeen and failed, But as with
Speaker 1: January sixth, we must see it from his diseased point
Speaker 1: of view. They were not failures. Those events and January sixth,
Speaker 1: they were not failures. They were practice, and they were
Speaker 1: also practiced at erasing all the norms, exactly as Hitler
Speaker 1: did gradually. Just last week, Bob Woodward can the story
Speaker 1: of the ex Congressman Moe Brooks, one that Jonathan Carl
Speaker 1: had written about last year about Trump calling Brooks while
Speaker 1: Brooks was running for Senate and Trump had already endorsed him.
Speaker 1: Mobrooks might have been Trump's wildest fascist ally in the
Speaker 1: coup attempt of January twenty twenty one, but now Trump
Speaker 1: needed a favor four favors. Actually, he wanted mow Brooks
Speaker 1: to publicly call for Biden to be removed from the
Speaker 1: White House. This is in twenty twenty one. He wanted
Speaker 1: Brooks to publicly call for an immediate new election and
Speaker 1: he wanted Brooks to publicly insist that Trump be reinstated.
Speaker 1: In short, he wanted Brooks to make demands that could
Speaker 1: easily have actually talched off a full scale civil war overnight.
Speaker 1: Maybe the real story there was mo Brooks declined, whereupon
Speaker 1: Trump withdrew his endorsement. Brooks lost the primary and has
Speaker 1: not been heard from since. You do not disobey the furer.
Speaker 1: Carl also wrote that the reason the same Republicans who
Speaker 1: attacked Trump after the coup all did a one point
Speaker 1: eighty and began making excuses for him was that Trump
Speaker 1: called Ronald McDaniel on the morning of his last day
Speaker 1: in office, January twentieth, and told her that if they
Speaker 1: didn't get in line, he would be leaving the Republican
Speaker 1: Party to form his own party. So when it comes
Speaker 1: out that there were deleted tweets criticizing Trump about January sixth, yesterday,
Speaker 1: it was Chris la Sevita, one of Trump's twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four campaign managers, turned out to have been anti Trump
Speaker 1: on January sixth, even talked about removing him in from office.
Speaker 1: In the last two weeks of the administration. Oh oh no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, I was just retweeting. Retweets are not endorsements.
Speaker 1: When you ask why no Republican breaks with Trump, even
Speaker 1: as he has everything about Hitler going for him except
Speaker 1: the mustache, sh it's because for nearly four years Trump
Speaker 1: has been holding the Republican Party hostage. Do it my way,
Speaker 1: or you will be the third party and the Trump
Speaker 1: Party will be the second party. John carl also wrote
Speaker 1: of what the House January sixth committee had found about
Speaker 1: Trump's final days but did not put before the public.
Speaker 1: The Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and its Chief of Staff
Speaker 1: James McConville, had announced that the military would play no
Speaker 1: role in determining the outcome of the twenty twenty election,
Speaker 1: nor in the transition of power. And this infuriated Trump,
Speaker 1: who was busy huddling with Jeff Clark also on that
Speaker 1: list for Attorney General that came out the other day,
Speaker 1: and other experts like Sidney Powell and the guy from
Speaker 1: overstock dot com about having the military seize the voting
Speaker 1: machines and declaring martial law. And this was the new
Speaker 1: part Trump quote sent top aide Johnny McAtee to warn
Speaker 1: Pentagon leaders that Trump was irate. Mcintee relayed Trump's concerns
Speaker 1: to Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, and took some notes
Speaker 1: on the conversation to pass back to the West Wing.
Speaker 1: And there is the note, torn in pieces in a
Speaker 1: Trumpian prepubescent rage, taped back together by aids more loyal
Speaker 1: to your National Archives than to Trump. Quote Chris Miller
Speaker 1: spoke to both of them and anticipates no more statements
Speaker 1: coming out. If another happens, he will fire them unquote.
Speaker 1: And there it is the twenty twenty Trumpian warm up
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty five, when all the generals who are
Speaker 1: disloyal to Trump will be fired because, as John Kelly
Speaker 1: finally put on the record, the generals he wants, the
Speaker 1: generals he will get next time will be just like Hitler's,
Speaker 1: and all those generals who are loyal to Trump will
Speaker 1: not be fired. They will be firing at you and me.
Speaker 1: There is, of course, one note in this nightmare orchestra
Speaker 1: that does not seem to be in tune with the
Speaker 1: rest of Trump. As Hitler, he is specific, repetitive, almost
Speaker 1: boringly angry about his unprecedented, unmatched support of Jewish people
Speaker 1: until you listen carefully, when you realize it's not supportive
Speaker 1: Jewish people at all. It's just another anti Semitic trope,
Speaker 1: and it is based on the idea that Jews are
Speaker 1: loyal not to America or whatever country they live in,
Speaker 1: but to Israel. And Israel is part of something even
Speaker 1: darker within Trump's world. It is the way he has
Speaker 1: got in America's evangelicals decide with him no matter what,
Speaker 1: because the evangelicals love Israel. Israel has to be protected
Speaker 1: because the rapture can only happen after the evangelicals and
Speaker 1: God convert all the Jews or kill them. Now, that
Speaker 1: might as well be a Trump campaign plank, and it
Speaker 1: is another reason John Kelly has to go back to
Speaker 1: war before the microphones and cameras. This time, I'll explain
Speaker 1: this darkest part of the darkness next quote. No president
Speaker 1: has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however,
Speaker 1: our wonderful evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than
Speaker 1: the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in
Speaker 1: the US. Those living in Israel, though, are a different story.
Speaker 1: Highest approval rating in the world could easily be pm US.
Speaker 1: Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what
Speaker 1: they have in Israel before it is too late. The
Speaker 1: first thing there, and if you didn't recognize it, that
Speaker 1: quote is from Trump. The first thing to note there
Speaker 1: is Trump's unshakable conviction. We have been hearing it since
Speaker 1: at least twenty sixteen. God knows what Evana Trump heard.
Speaker 1: He said it again last week, that Americans of Jewish
Speaker 1: heritage are actually loyal first, or should be loyal first,
Speaker 1: to Israel people of the Jewish faith, especially those living
Speaker 1: in Israel. This is one of the oldest tropes about
Speaker 1: that religion, that there is an implied dual citizenship, a
Speaker 1: certain uncertainty as to where Jewish loyalty really lies. All
Speaker 1: anti Semites depend upon it. All rulers who ever purged
Speaker 1: Jews believed it. Adolf Hitler started there in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: At a Hanukkah event at the White House. Addressing Americans
Speaker 1: who happened to be Jewish, he referred to Israel as quote,
Speaker 1: your country, not the last time he said that. A
Speaker 1: year later, he said, anybody who voted for a Democrat
Speaker 1: might be disloyal. This has now become You'd better have
Speaker 1: your head examined. He asked a reporter from an Orthodox
Speaker 1: Jewish magazine. I did the Heights, I did Jerusalem, I
Speaker 1: did Iran. The Iran deal was a disaster, right, and
Speaker 1: I also did many other things. Jewish people who live
Speaker 1: in the United States don't love Israel enough. Does that
Speaker 1: make sense to you. I'm not talking about Orthodox Jews.
Speaker 1: I believe we got twenty five percent of the Jewish vote,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't make sense. It just seems strange to me.
Speaker 1: He might as well have said I fed them fish.
Speaker 1: Why didn't they spark like seals? Translation of that quote
Speaker 1: and of the social media post. As president, he gave
Speaker 1: Israel gifts. He was nice to them, when you know
Speaker 1: he could have been openly anti Israel or anti Semitic.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's the point of having a cabinet to
Speaker 1: keep your Hitler books in? I mean, he didn't do
Speaker 1: any now things to the Jews. You'd think the Jews
Speaker 1: would fawn over him for not openly persecuting them. Let
Speaker 1: me go out of sequence here and cut to the
Speaker 1: money quote. US Jews have to get their act together
Speaker 1: and appreciate what they have in Israel before it is
Speaker 1: too late. I'm going to go out on a limb
Speaker 1: here and say that's not subtle it is a threat
Speaker 1: or a threat couched as a warning. Either way, it
Speaker 1: is a repeat of the way the diseased mind of
Speaker 1: Trump works. People hate you. I helped you. You haven't
Speaker 1: been grateful enough. Your Jewish Israel, not America, is your country.
Speaker 1: I helped Israel. If I'm not there to help Israel,
Speaker 1: you'll be sorry. So you better start supporting me more
Speaker 1: or else. But maybe the most important part of that
Speaker 1: post is the seemingly throwaway reference to the evangelicals. It
Speaker 1: actually explains the whole goddamned thing. He says, our wonderful evangelicals. Sorry,
Speaker 1: these are religious nuts who will support him no matter
Speaker 1: what because they think he is part of the most
Speaker 1: screwball Bible prophecy of all of the many screwball Bible prophecies.
Speaker 1: He thinks they are far more appreciative of his support
Speaker 1: for Israel than our American Jews. The Trump and tell
Speaker 1: here is adding the phrase somewhat surprisingly. This is his
Speaker 1: standard misdirection, making it seem as if he doesn't understand
Speaker 1: something quote or somewhat surprisingly that always means he understands
Speaker 1: it completely. He realizes it's dark implications, and he wants
Speaker 1: to distance himself from it. He can't sell it to you,
Speaker 1: he has to hide it from you. And the obsession
Speaker 1: with Israel on the part of those wonderful evangelicals is
Speaker 1: as dark as it effing gets. And if you don't
Speaker 1: know this yet, sit your ass down. Four and a
Speaker 1: half years ago or more, Newsweek printed this remarkable headline quote,
Speaker 1: Trump will start the end of the world, claim evangelicals
Speaker 1: who support him. Evangelical Christians believe in end times what
Speaker 1: they call prophecy and what others call stuff somebody made
Speaker 1: up to fleece the gullible and stupid Jerusalem, where Trump
Speaker 1: moved the American embassy to is the centerpiece of this
Speaker 1: fire and brimstone ending. Let me quote some of the
Speaker 1: Newsweek piece on this. What kick starts the end Times
Speaker 1: into motion is Israel's political boundaries being re established to
Speaker 1: what God promised the Israelites according to the Bible. Nate Pyle,
Speaker 1: a pastor and author of a book about Jesus, told
Speaker 1: Newsweek most Evangelicals subscribe to a belief in pre millennialism,
Speaker 1: the belief that the second Coming of Christ will begin
Speaker 1: a one thousand year period where Christ will rule over
Speaker 1: a peaceful and prosperous Earth, Neil J. Young, a religion historian,
Speaker 1: told Newsweek. Young, who holds a PhD in history from
Speaker 1: Columbia University, writes frequently on evangelical culture and politics. Israel
Speaker 1: is a key part of this story too, as Christians
Speaker 1: believe that events there are fundamental to bringing about the
Speaker 1: end times. Young continued. Meanwhile, the evangelical belief in the
Speaker 1: end times also includes the eventual conversion to Christianity of
Speaker 1: the Jewish people. The scenario begins when Christ comes to
Speaker 1: Earth to take the living Christians who believe in him
Speaker 1: to Heaven and resurrect the dead who were true Christians,
Speaker 1: an event called the Rapture. Afterward, it is believed that
Speaker 1: the Antichrist will reign on Earth during the seven year
Speaker 1: period of tribulation. What about my four oh one k
Speaker 1: now you didn't mishear anything in there. The evangelical fascination
Speaker 1: with Jerusalem is about Christ returning and converting the Jews
Speaker 1: or killing them. There is a history of professor at
Speaker 1: the University of North Texas named Elizabeth Oldmixon. She studies
Speaker 1: nothing but this bizarre connection between the evangelicals and Israel,
Speaker 1: and now evangelicals and Israel and Trump. Vox interviewed her
Speaker 1: and got to the whole, you know, convert or die thing.
Speaker 1: They believe that before Christ will return, She said, there
Speaker 1: will be a tribulation where Christ defeats evil. There will
Speaker 1: be natural disasters and wars, and perhaps and anti Christ,
Speaker 1: as the Book of Revelation notes. Then at the end
Speaker 1: of that period, the people of the Mosaic Covenant, including
Speaker 1: the Jews, will convert. Then after their conversion, the Great
Speaker 1: Millennium starts. The Vox reporter has seen the small problem
Speaker 1: in this timeline and quite naturally asks Professor Oldmixon, and
Speaker 1: what about the people who don't convert? What becomes of them?
Speaker 1: Old Mixon quote, Well, according to the evangelicals who believe this,
Speaker 1: they'll end up with the of the unsaved, which means
Speaker 1: they'll be wiped out and sent to Hell. Well, there
Speaker 1: you have it. Trump's support for Israel, his easiest, most
Speaker 1: sellable defense against the charge that he is Hitler nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two, is based on his need for Evangelicals to
Speaker 1: support him and the Evangelicals support Israel, because later a
Speaker 1: little later here in the timeline, it's revealed that all
Speaker 1: the Jews are to be converted or killed. So, if
Speaker 1: you want to take the darkest view of that last
Speaker 1: sentence from Trump, US Jews have to get their act
Speaker 1: together and appreciate what they have in Israel before it
Speaker 1: is too late. He's literally warning them about annihilation. Where
Speaker 1: have we heard this before? More importantly, how do we
Speaker 1: stop it? That wonderfully titled Bill Crystal column yesterday, I
Speaker 1: Track Wrong Track noted that to some degree, the cynical
Speaker 1: and useless Governor Sinunu was right that voters are glazed
Speaker 1: over about Trump's hitlary in tendencies and anti democracy hints.
Speaker 1: But Crystal notes that an outfit called Blueprint tested several phrases,
Speaker 1: several political campaign phrases with focus groups, and one horrified them.
Speaker 1: And what we need right now is horrified. As Crystal wrote,
Speaker 1: what did move the needle was this message. Nearly half
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump's cabinet have refused to endorse him. When
Speaker 1: Trump learned during the Capital riot that his supporters were
Speaker 1: threatening to kill his own vice president, he said so
Speaker 1: what and refused to do anything to assure the vice
Speaker 1: president was safe. Republican governors, senators, and House members have
Speaker 1: all said the same thing. We can't give Trump another
Speaker 1: four years as president. Crystal continues, as soon as the
Speaker 1: message turned from an abstract argument against Trump into an
Speaker 1: unambiguous case that Trump's own former allies were making against him,
Speaker 1: it became the single most persuasive line tested by Blueprint.
Speaker 1: It was stronger even than abortion rights and social security.
Speaker 1: In other words, hearing about Trump's on fitness from people
Speaker 1: who worked with him and from Republicans one would expect
Speaker 1: to defend him seems to make a difference. I think
Speaker 1: the takeaway here is pretty obvious. Crystal concludes. Voters have
Speaker 1: become inured to many shocking things about Trump, but maybe
Speaker 1: the one thing that can shake them out of that
Speaker 1: torpor is people who knew or worked with Trump stepping
Speaker 1: up to make the case from their own experience. I
Speaker 1: wonder who he means. I will also suggest in conclusion
Speaker 1: that however slowly they work, words can work. They are
Speaker 1: not the solution, but they open doors to the solution.
Speaker 1: On this podcast, starting in September twenty twenty two, I
Speaker 1: began one night by saying these words, we must face
Speaker 1: the reality that Trump is America's hitler. We must use
Speaker 1: the real words. There are no more dog whistles as
Speaker 1: of now, as of this weekend, as of this morning,
Speaker 1: they have begun to salute him as others saluted Hitler.
Speaker 1: They have begun to play the music and chant the
Speaker 1: slogans of QAnon. They have begun to weave in the
Speaker 1: sing song melodies of the televangelists and the Christo fascists.
Speaker 1: They have stopped pretending, So too, must we stop pretending.
Speaker 1: America's Hitler is here. John Kelly knows this. John Kelly
Speaker 1: is now the embodiment of the Trump cabinet members who
Speaker 1: all know this, who appear in the Blueprint focus group.
Speaker 1: It is time for John Kelly to call the news conference.
Speaker 1: He and America's other real patriots, real generals, real bureaucrats,
Speaker 1: even real political operatives. They can get up there and
Speaker 1: tell what they heard and give the forces of democracy
Speaker 1: a slightly better chance. On November fifth, name names general,
Speaker 1: and the names are Trump and Hitler. Good morning, good afternoon,
Speaker 1: good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Oldman is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.