CNN commentator and former Bush administration official Scott Jennings compared left-wing Palestine solidarity protesters on college campuses to Hitler in an attempt to defend Donald Trump, who’s facing a controversy after reporting emerged he allegedly told White House officials he wished he had “the kind of generals that Hitler had.”
Jennings’s comments came after explosive reports in The New York Times and The Atlantic citing officials like former chief of staff John Kelly, who argued Trump meets the defintion of a fascist and that while president he claimed Hitler did “some good things.”
“I would just humbly submit to Mr. Kelly, if he’s worried about Hitler and he’s worried about fascism, he ought to pick up the newspaper,” Jennings said on CNN on Tuesday. “There’s thousands of Hitlers running around this country right now, running around college campuses, running round New York City, chasing Jewish people around, blocking their access on college campuses. If you’re worried about Hitler, and you’re talking about Donald Trump, maybe open your eyes and take in what’s happening on the American left in this country.”
Jennings’s fellow panelist, former South Carolina state representative Bakari Sellers, reacted in shock to the comments, calling them “far beyond the pale.”
“The line has been crossed,” Sellers said. “You are over there and the line is behind you to compare college students who are protesting for Palestinian rights to Adolf Hitler.”
Since October 7 of last year, US college campuses have been the site of both antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents. Many of the student activists supporting Palestine and protesting Israel’s role in the conflict, which some international observers have deemed a genocide, are Jewish themselves.
Scott Jennings says there are thousands of Hitlers running around college campuses and New York City. pic.twitter.com/eci3T9pYyK
— Blue Georgia (@BlueATLGeorgia) October 23, 2024
Trump’s alleged Hitler comments have generated heated discussion across the political discussion.
Kamala Harris accused her rival of having become “increasingly unhinged and unstable.”
“Donald Trump said that because he does not want a military that is loyal to the United States Constitution, he wants a military that is loyal to him,” Harris said on Wednesday.
The criticisms come as Trump has alarmed many observers with rhetoric similar to far-right autocrats, including a grim recent suggestion he’d use the military domestically to go after people on the left, whom he deemed the “enemy within.”
On Fox News, host Brian Kilmeade suggested Trump may not have known what he was saying about Hitler, and that his alleged comments stemmed from frustration with moving from the private sector to government, rather than any allegiance to the genocidal fascist.
“He obviously has frustration, and I could absolutely see him going out, ‘You know what? It would be great to have German generals [that] actually do what we asked them to do,’” he said. “Knowing that, maybe not fully being cognizant of the third rail of German generals were Nazis and whatever. But he was frustrated with the slowdown.”
The Trump campaign has insisted Trump never wished for German-style generals, calling the reporting “absolutely false.” They have claimed Kelly’s comments are “debunked stories.”
