A new poll found that 81 percent of Democratic primary voters in Illinois agree with the statement that “[Donald] Trump and many of his supporters are like Nazis.”
How did that staggering figure come to be? Well, it would be fair to assume at least some of it stems from the rhetoric of leftist pundits and media outlets that have been calling the president and MAGA movement “Hitler,” “Nazis,” and “fascists” for the better part of the last decade.
But according to MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, no Democrat has ever compared Trump to German dictator Adolf Hitler. In fact, she said it is the Republicans who have labeled the president such.
On Wednesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Rich Lowry, editor-in-chief of National Review, to debunk Wallace’s absurd claim.
The Claim
Wallace was interviewing Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker on her The Best People podcast this week when the conversation turned to Nazi Germany. The governor, who is Jewish, pointed out that he “built a Holocaust museum with Holocaust survivors” and, while he said he wasn’t “suggesting [the United States is] heading towards a Holocaust,” he was “suggesting though that authoritarianism… is coming upon this country.”
Wallace praised her guest for putting “the intellectual architecture behind the parallels that involve all of us” as it relates to comparing Trump to Hitler and drawing parallels between the work of U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) in cities like Chicago to the Gestapo.
“I mean, J.D. Vance, called Donald Trump ‘America’s Hitler. It’s not a partisan analysis… But you’ve talked about– the first thing you said was ‘people being asked for their papers,’ American citizens being asked to show up with papers, street vendors being asked to produce passports, rounding people up, and good people looking the other way, thinking ‘that’s not about me.’ You know, I’m a citizen. But who do they go after next?” she asked. “Talk a little bit about why that’s so uncomfortable for so many people.”
Pritzker tried to distance himself from Wallace’s analysis. “I do want to separate myself from the idea that I’m calling him Hitler,” he responded. “I’m not suggesting– I haven’t suggested Donald Trump is Hitler. I wouldn’t say that about him.”
That’s when the former White House comms director offered her absurd take. “I don’t think any Democrat has,” she claimed. “And I actually think it’s a smear that they project back onto critics. But J.D. Vance called Donald Trump ‘cultural heroin.’ He called him ‘America’s Hitler.’ I mean, the attacks on Donald Trump as a fascist came from three generals who worked for him.”
The Receipts
Unfortunately for Wallace, that is simply not true. She herself has made the comparison several times over the years, as has former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), and Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) to name a few.
And then there are all the times it has appeared in print. Megyn referenced the infamous July 2024 cover of The New Republic that actually merged Trump’s face with Hitler’s under the headline “American Fascism.” Then, there were the op-eds in The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlantic, Salon, and more with headlines like:
– “It’s not wrong to compare Trump’s America to the Holocaust. Here’s why.”
– “Trump gets compared with history’s great villain because his rhetoric is that bad”
– “Is it wrong to compare Trump to Hitler? No.”
– “Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini”
– “This is the week it became accurate to compare Trump to Hitler”
“The whole criticism has been you compare him regularly to literally, one of, if not the, worst person to ever walk the face of the earth, which is unjustified and unnecessarily incendiary. And that they have done repeatedly, ad nauseum, ad infinitum,” Megyn said. “So, is Nicolle Wallace in the stages of early dementia, or is she just lying?”
The ‘Game’
Lowry called Wallace’s claim a “completely absurd denial of reality” because the rhetoric all gets to the same point. “You hear, if not ‘Hitler,’ at least ‘fascism’ on her show pretty routinely,” he noted. “And there’s obviously been a cottage industry of books the last 10 years now about how we’re descending into fascism. So, this is what they believe… and she should just own it.”
In Megyn’s view, Wallace’s selective memory is “part of the game” the left plays. “They fire up the rhetoric in the nastiest, most incendiary… inciteful ways… they cause the electorate – you saw it in that Illinois poll – to think all Republicans are Nazis and that political violence may be a viable answer to the newfound Nazism, and then totally disavow any responsibility for what they’ve done,” she explained. “It’s really, yes, dishonest, but it’s also dangerous for people on our side of the aisle.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Lowry by tuning in to episode 1,182 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.