Senator Lindsay Graham’s attack on “dangerous” rhetoric calling Donald Trump a fascist got promptly shut down by video evidence of the former president calling Kamala Harris a fascist.
Last week, retired Marine General John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, said the former president fell under “the general definition of fascist.” Mark Esper, the former defense secretary, said that he agreed with Kelly’s assessment. Earlier this month, it was reported that retired General Mark Milley called Trump “fascist to the core.”
These statements predictably sent Trump into a rage, and Graham attempted to smear the Republican presidential candidate’s critics Sunday for trying to sound the alarm about their former boss.
“He’s not a fascist. He’s not Hitler, and that just shows you how desperate this campaign is,” Graham said during an appearance on ABC’s This Week with host Jonathan Karl.
These generals are “trying to turn joy into fear,” Graham cried, as if he were not defending the candidate who, just this weekend, falsely claimed American cities had been “invaded and conquered” by immigrants.
Graham became hysterical as he claimed Trump’s critics had “turned America upside-down” by “using rhetoric that is dangerous and off-base” to “try to scare Americans.” The South Carolina Republican also claimed the former White House advisers had “called [Trump] Hitler,” which they didn’t.
“Now you have been very critical of the generals, two of them using the word ‘fascist.’ Mitch McConnell and Speaker Mike Johnson have been very critical, saying ‘This is inciting violence,’ ‘How dare you call Donald Trump a fascist?’ Let me just play you a little bit about what Donald Trump has had to say about Kamala Harris,” Karl said.
Cut to an edit of Trump calling Harris a fascist over and over again.
“The true divide in American politics today is between these far-left fascists led by Harris and her group,” Trump said at a rally on August 23.
“We have a fascist person running, who’s incompetent,” Trump said again, just three days later.
“She’s a Marxist, communist, fascist, socialist—she’s not actually a socialist,” Trump said.
During a rambling speech in Los Angeles in September, Trump called Harris a “radical left, Marxist, communist, fascist,” though such a person could not, ideologically, exist.
Graham was quick to make his own attitudes clear, in light of Trump’s rhetoric. “Why don‘t you ask me, ‘Do I think Kamala Harris is a fascist?’ No. Do I think she’s a communist? No. I think she’s the most liberal person to ever be dominated by a major party. I think she’s ineffective, I think she’s incompetent,” Graham said.
Rather than address how brutally ridiculous he just made himself look, the South Carolina Republican started rattling off a stump speech against Harris.
Karl pushed Graham to acknowledge Trump’s “stronger” language.
“You’re not having Senator Lindsey Graham say she’s a fascist, she’s just incompetent,” Graham sputtered, as Karl brought their interview to a close.
Last week, more than a dozen officials agreed with Kelly’s assessment that Trump is a fascist, stating that “this is who Donald Trump is” in a letter published Friday.
