October 24, 2024 • 42 mins
SERIES 3 EPISODE 56: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN
A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Republican silence or in some cases rationalizations have met General John Kelly taking his story ON the record about Trump coveting generals personally loyal to him the way Hitler's were personally loyal to him, and Trump insisting Hitler did good things for Germany.
With other of mortified Trump military officials reportedly contemplating going public in similar ways, it is absolutely necessary for General Kelly to convene a live news conference - to be joined by any of those other officials - to name names.
And the names he must name are Trump and Hitler.
We are at an inflection point right now as surely as we were at Yorktown or Gettysburg or Normandy except that with WORDS you can prevent the bloodshed that will happen not on ONE battlefield at home or abroad, but in every corner of this nation, because bloodshed and the threat of it will be the essence of the Trump dictatorship. And bluntly, General, you helped get us there because while you were witnessing this madman in real time yearn for a military personally sworn to him as the Wermacht was to Hitler, you… said nothing.
Now that you’re talking, and the test of your patriotism – to say nothing of the test of the CHANCE for this nation to still exist five years from now in something LIKE its current form – depends on YOU winning The Battle of Trump Because the choice, General, is: A free America, or a dictatorship where you in the military, are expected to shoot Trump’s critics for him. Period.
B-BLOCK (18:23) This issue merits an entire episode and a lot of explanation. It is only a year since Trump began to openly mimic Hitler but his admiration of him was first identified in 1990. The saga of Trump's gradual revelation, beginning with Ivana Trump's confirmation to Vanity Fair magazine that he kept a book of Hitler's speeches by his bed.
C-BLOCK (34:59) The darkest component to Trump's admiration of Hitler is that his defense against all such revelations is that he's such a supporter of Jewish Americans. But of course he isn't. He's a supporter of Israel, which buys him the support of Evangelical Christians who actually believe their "rapture" will happen only after all the Jews are in Israel, and they are converted - or killed.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio Now.
As Andrew Lawrence of Media Matters put it perfectly, the
(00:26):
woke mob is coming after Hitler. The day after General
John Kelly's confirmation to The Atlantic that Trump personally said
to him that he wanted generals like Hitler's generals, no
Republican condemned Trump, and several, like Governor Son who knew
of New Hampshire, defended Trump in the same matter of
(00:47):
fact condescending way the Germans and some Americans dismissed and
defended Hitler literally a century ago. Well, he didn't really
say it, and even if he did, he didn't really
mean it. And even if he meant it, he really
wouldn't try it, And even if he tried it, he
really wouldn't get away with it. General Kelly needs to
(01:07):
now hold a news conference, an open event, national Press
Club in DC or wherever he can get a place
cheap and lay it all out on the record in
front of the cameras and the microphones for an hour
or ninety minutes longer if he can get others from
the Trump Reign of terror and error to join him there,
(01:29):
And that is a possibility others. Selena Wong of ABC
is quoting the former national security official Olivia Troy, who
told her military leaders who have served in the Trump
administration are weighing the following on whether to go on
the record against Trump. Is it hurtful or helpful to
the military, and does it politicize them even more? Troy
(01:52):
also says these military leaders are naturally enough calculating the
human equation. What risk does saying something put them at?
What risk does it put their families at? And how
how much exponentially higher does that risk become if Trump wins. Anyway,
(02:12):
no offense meant with this. We may have been fetishizing
the military since nine to eleven, but no one will
deny that its people have a different kind of courage
than the rest of us do, and as a baseline
it is indelibly admirable. But the nation has never been
at greater risk than it is right now, never including
(02:33):
the Civil War. And that is even clearer if we
are just talking about the military, because if Trump now wins,
the military ceases to be what it has been since
June fourteenth, seventeen seventy five, when the Continental Army was founded.
It was founded as a force to defend this land
(02:55):
and its people and its freedoms from tyranny, not to
become an instrument by which a scumbag like Trump and
the whole of little scumbags around him can enforce tyranny
against America and Americans. That is the choice, General, a
free America more or less, or an absolute dictatorship where you, sir,
(03:19):
are expected to shoot Trump's American critics. Period. The more
stars on a military man or woman's shoulders, the more
you hear them talk about the privilege and responsibility of
serving and defending this nation. Well, the price of the
responsibility part has just come due. General Kelly, you had
(03:43):
the guts to tell the Trump Hitler story on the
record finally, and the fascism part on audio finally, and
the Republicans like Chris Sinunu dismissed it and you as
part of a political campaign and ultraliberalism. And Sinunu explained
that we've all heard a lot of extreme things about
Donald Trump and a lot of extreme things from Donald Trump,
(04:04):
and it's kind of baked into the vote. And he says,
the polls show nobody cares, and not once did it
ever seem to register with this idiot Sununu or the
other Republicans who even referenced this yesterday, that we are
not talking about a vote, we are talking about death camps.
And Sununu is left almost literally explaining that it's just
(04:26):
the woke mob coming for Hitler and General and to
the military leader, friends of Olivia, Troy, if that doesn't
get you to sit down at Adias at the National
Press Club and do as much for this country as
if you were personally subduing the nine to eleven hijackers
as they boarded the planes. Maybe this from the dumbest
(04:48):
man in America. Brian Kilmead from Fox News, gradually building
his rationalization to the point where he comes this close
to saying that, yeah, maybe Trump shouldn't have mentioned Hitler,
but it's not like he was wrong about Hitler, because
certainly Hitler Generals did a lot of good things. Maybe
this will get you onto that stage in front of
(05:10):
those microphones. General, it's not your job to reign in
the president. It's your job to do with the president wants.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And then you factor in the fact that he runs
his own company, coming from the business world, the first
one we've ever had it's not even a public company.
And then he obviously has frustration, and I could absolutely
see him going, now, you know what, it would be
great to have German generals that actually do what we
ask them to do, knowing that's maybe not fully being
cognizant of the third rail of German general's we're Nazis
(05:38):
and whatever.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Great general's bad boss, General Kelly, we aren't an inflection
point right now as certainly as we were at Yorktown
or Gettysburg or Normandy, except that with just words you
can prevent the bloodshed that will happen not on one battlefield,
(05:59):
at home or abroad, but in every quarter of this
nation to some great degree or just to some small degree,
because bloodshed and the threat of it will be the
essence of a Trump dictatorship. And bluntly, General, you helped
get us here because while you were witnessing this madman
in real time yearned for a military personally sworn to
(06:23):
him as the Wehrmacht was to Hitler, you said nothing. Then, well,
now you are talking, and the test of your patriotism,
to say nothing of the test of the chance for
this nation to still exist five years from now in
something like its current form depends on you winning the
(06:44):
Battle of Trump, because I don't know where you were
on Saturday October twentieth, nineteen seventy three. Your biography says
you had gone into the reserves, so in your early
twenties you could finish your degree at UMass Boston. So
maybe you watched the Special Watergate Council Archibald Cox's press
(07:04):
conference that afternoon at the National Press Club, where Cox
spoke so modestly, so bluntly, so self abnegatingly about the
crimes of Richard Nixon that he not only broke Nixon
and precipitated Nixon's infamous Saturday Night massacre, firing Cox, forcing
the resignations of the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General
(07:25):
hours later when they wouldn't fire Cox. Cox not only
did that, but more importantly, his honesty, his patriotism was
so obvious and unanswerable that when Nixon acted in a
show of force that he was certain was going to
win Watergate for him and make his opponents afraid of him,
America instead sided with Archie Cox and the truth and
(07:48):
the investigation, and Nixon that night became an ex president,
waiting to happen. General Kelly, this country may be too
far gone for one man to make a public creed
decur or twenty of them to make them, and for
that to save the nation. But you right now are
(08:08):
our best chance, and maybe our last chance before the election.
Get up there and tell what you told. Jeffrey Goldberg
of The Atlantic. Cite as many dates and details as
you can put Trump's invoking of Hitler on the record.
Tell them about Trump calling the American dead of World
(08:29):
War One in France suckers and losers. Tell them. Tell
them live on CNN, on MSNBC, on CBS, ABC, NBC,
live on Fox, if Fox has the guts to do it,
tell them what you told. My friend Michael Schmid of
the New York Times.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Too, And of course if you knows history. Again, I
think he's lacking a man. But if you know what
you know him, it was all about it. You would
be pretty hard to make an argument that you did
anything good.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
So what would you What would you say when he
said to you that Hitler did a lot of good things?
Speaker 4 (09:12):
I tell him that, I said, yes, sir. If you
first of all, you should never say that.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
But if you knew what mister Kila was all about
from the beginning to the end.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Uh. Everything he did was to one of his racist,
fascist uh life you know, you know philosophy, so that
nothing he did you could argue was good. It was
certainly not done for the right reason.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And he would occasionally say that. By the way, the
New York Times put all that below the fold of
the front page, under all the horse race stories and
political strategy and polling. The way the Times coincidentally buried
Watergate for a year until Archie Cox held his press
(10:06):
conference fifty one years ago last Sunday, Do it general
alert the media because the media is obviously no longer
alert to threats, because the media has forgotten its oath,
unofficial as it is, and especially because your oath, Sir,
to serve this nation, and if need be, to save
(10:30):
this nation, is neither unofficial nor forgotten. It is hard
to believe that right now, in the rankings of nonpartisan
patriotic service to this country, the ill fated former New
(10:50):
York Times columnist William Crystal is far far ahead of
The Times itself, and ahead of dozens of other terrified, lazy,
and ultimately incompetent news outlets. Because just the headline of
the column that Bill Crystal and Andrew Egger wrote for
The Bulwark Reich Track Wrong Track, is gutsier than anything
(11:15):
that's been in The New York Times in a decade,
because they are recognizing what has been undeniable for at
least a year, almost certainly for nine years, has been
clearly true for thirty four years. Trump is our Hitler,
not the nineteen forty Hitler, not nineteen thirty eight Hitler,
(11:35):
but nineteen thirty two Hitler, the one who, had he
been stopped then would not have destroyed Europe. The now
is the last chance to prevent Hitler Hitler. That's who
Trump has become. That's who Trump is today. And some
of us have known this for thirty four years, since
(11:58):
late in the summer of nineteen ninety, that is, when
a writer named Marie Brenner published a profile of Trump
and his first wife in Vanity Fair magazine. It is
always useful to quote several paragraphs of this article in
full September nineteen ninety quote Trump appears to take aspects
(12:19):
of his German background seriously. John Walter works for the
Trump Organization, and when he visits Donald in his office,
Ivanna told a friend he clicks his heels and says
Hyle Hitler, possibly as a family joke. Last April, perhaps
in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivannah Trump told her
(12:41):
lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband
reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order,
which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy
now guards a copy of My New Order in a
closet at his office as if it were a grenade.
Hitler's speeches from his earliest days up through the Phony
(13:03):
War of nineteen thirty nine reveal his extraordinary ability as
a master propagandist. Did your cousin John give you the
Hitler speeches, I asked Trump. Trump hesitated, who told you that?
I don't remember. I said, Actually, it was my friend
Marty Davis from Paramount, who gave me a copy of
(13:25):
Mind comp and he's a Jew. I did give him
a book about Hitler. Marty Davis said, but it was
My New Order Hitler's speeches, not mine. COMF I thought
he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but
I'm not Jewish. Later, Trump returned to this subject, if
I had these speeches, and I am not saying that
(13:46):
I do. I would never read them. There was another
quote in that Vanity Fair article from thirty four years ago,
attributed to one of his attorneys. Donald the unnamed lawyer said,
is a believer in the big lie theory. If you
say something again and again, people will believe you. Nineteen ninety.
(14:13):
It was all there in nineteen ninety from I would
never read these speeches to giving speeches even Bill Crystal
recognizes as Hitlarian. This subject requires more time. I want
to give this entire episode to it, because Trump is
Hitler nineteen thirty two, and General Kelly has to hold
(14:37):
that news conference because the evil of Trump and the
threat he poses of re enacting all or part of
the actual Nazi nightmare only here is accelerating and the
days are down to a precious few. I ask, do
you remember the shock of eleven months ago? It's like
(14:58):
living next to a bad intersection where there's a car
crash every hour and being asked about one specifically from
November of last year, But from November of last year
when Trump used one Hitlarian word and the critics recognized it,
and when the critics erupted. Trump's spokesman vowed that for
(15:19):
those critics quote, their entire existence will be crushed when
Trump returns to the White House. Remember that I will
continue from that point. That's next. This is countdown. Nearly
a year ago, in a five day span in November,
(15:42):
America seemed to be getting the point. Quote. Trump calls
political enemies vermin, echoing dictators, Hitler, Mussolini. That was a
headline in the Washington Post. Quote Trump compares political foes
to vermin on Veterans Day, echoing Nazi propaganda. That was
the headline in Forbes magazine. Quote it's a official with Vermin.
(16:05):
Trump is now using straight up Nazi talk. That was
the headline in The New Republic. Trump is Hitler. Quote.
Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes,
and their entire existence will be crushed when Trump returns
to the White House. Unquote. That was the spokesman Stephen Chung.
(16:30):
Later that day, Chung realized, or somebody realized for him,
what he had actually said. Chung insisted he had intended
to say, and their sad, miserable existence will be crushed
when Trump returns to the White House, and that Chung
or whoever thought that for him, thought the horrifying part
of his threat was the word entire rather than the
phrase existence will be crushed. That told us all we
(16:54):
really needed to know that Trump and Stephen Chung and
Steven Miller and all the others know exactly what they
are saying and what it means and who they are paraphrasing.
Moments after Chung's correction, Trump raised the stakes again. He
(17:15):
sampled from another dictatorship, Jack Smith, Andrew Weissman, Lisa Monico,
the team of losers and misfits from crewe and all
the rest of the radical left zelots and thugs who
have been working illegally for years to take me down
will end up in a mental institution by the time
my next term as president is successfully completed. Unquote, Trump wrote,
(17:37):
forced psychiatric institutionalization was less the Nazis than it was
the Soviets, But the Nazis happily gassed those they deemed
mentally impaired, along with gassing everybody else. For a time
after this, Trump seemed to understand that to keep spaces
between his overt quotations of, and imitations of, and emulations
(18:00):
of Hitler was his way to slip them past those
who were looking for excuses to not believe that he
was Hitler nineteen thirty two, or perhaps with his deteriorating mind,
the spaces were inadvertent and simply accidentally protected him. But
then something else happened. It was in September last year,
twenty twenty three, in Dubuque in Iowa, when he began
(18:21):
to get into the Nazi obsession with blood and genetics.
It's in the genes, as he said last week, and
how the outsiders, the Auschlanders, are poisoning our blood. He
didn't call them Auschlanders, of course, he called them immigrants. Quote,
it's the blood of our country. What they're doing is
(18:44):
destroying our country. Then November ninth, twenty twenty three, inside
the one year mark until the election, at one o
three in the morning, quote, we are one movement, one people,
one family, and one glorious nation. Sounds like he found
(19:05):
that book that man Davis gave him. Huh. Last Veterans Day,
at one twenty five in the afternoon, Trump wrote, in
honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledged
to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists,
and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the
confines of our country. The threat from outside forces is
(19:28):
far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within.
Minutes later at Claremont Ne, Hampshire, he liked that one
so much he read it to the crowd on Veterans Day,
veterans many of whom still alive, who actually fought to
kill the last political strong man who talked about the
communist vermin and how he would root them out Hitler,
(19:51):
And now Trump was telling them about the communist vermin
and how he would root them out. That was when
Trump began to talk about the threat from within. Hitler
had been more explicit, but not much. The enemy from
within was Hitler's phrase, and by this past summer Trump
had realized that the enemy from within, or the enemy within,
(20:13):
was far better, and he took Hitler's phrase and he
made that one his own. Trump advocates for conformity and
suppression of descent. One people, one family, one glorious nation.
For Hitler, it was a little bit more lyrical. One people,
one realm, one leader. And then Trump moved to the
(20:34):
sanguine imagery migrants poisoning the blood of our country. Hitler
began with the evil nonsense of pure Aryan blood and
ended by killing those who did not quote have unquote it.
Trump's puppeteer, Stephen Miller, has revealed plans for quote vast
(20:55):
holding facilities that would function as staging centers, built by
the military and operated by Homeland Security, enabling quote Trump
to unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement
the most spectacular migration crackdown. Hitler's view was identical, his
terminology simpler. He just called them concentration camps. Steven Miller's
(21:19):
rapture at this idea underscores that we are not merely
witnessing Trump using the latest in a decade's long list
of bad advertising slogans for products that he will never deliver.
He means it, they mean it, and as what John
Kelly told us yesterday and the day before meant, they
do not mean it, just rhetorically quote. Any activists who
(21:42):
doubt Trump's resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error.
Miller said, the immigration legal activists won't know what's happening.
Then there is the question of how to make Trump's
Hitlarian plans look legal. RUSS vote, The Project twenty twenty
five architect helpfully mapped out how to turn the Apartment
(22:05):
of Justice into a real life or Wellian and Hitlary
in Revenge Factory. You don't need a statutory change at all,
he said, you need a mindset change. You need an
attorney general in a White House Counsel's office that don't
view themselves as trying to protect the department from the president. Hm,
(22:25):
who is that? They mentioned the other days on the
short list for Trump's attorney general. His concierge judge in Florida,
Aileen Cannon, an attorney general doesn't view themselves as trying
to protect the department from the president. Well, she's got
that down. RUSS vote, meanwhile, is now referenced by Axios
(22:46):
as being behind a plan to apply this same idea
to the military. Quote rigorously review all general and flag
officer promotions to make sure the senior military officials line
up with Trump's philosophies. In other words, John Kelly can
go to Hell and all the other John Kelly's with
him and drip by drip, just as in Nazi Germany,
the evil grows and grows slowly, but certainly it's barely
(23:10):
bigger than the last time you look. But it is bigger.
This was all comparatively new a year ago. Then, weeks
after the outlines of Project twenty twenty five became clear,
the Washington Post first reported they were drafting plans to
potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on Trump's first day in office,
(23:31):
to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.
The military General Kelly, that would be, you go out
and shoot some American civilians. The more unarmed, the better.
That's your choice. Get up and speak or get out
and shoot. And of course Trump and Stephen Miller waiting
(23:52):
for the bell to ring, quoting the New York Times,
because Trump plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants
and deport people by the millions per year. The newest
version of this promise, obviously is fifteen million in US total.
And as I first pointed out in twenty sixteen, we
really do need to remember that it's not as if
non immigrants wouldn't try to stop this, And of course
(24:13):
when they did try to stop it, they would go
to those vast holding facilities that would function as staging
centers along with the migrants, those vast holding facilities that
are just camps, camps with concentration concentration camps. It must
also be caveated that Trump to some degree tried to
(24:35):
do this in twenty seventeen and failed, But as with
January sixth, we must see it from his diseased point
of view. They were not failures. Those events and January sixth,
they were not failures. They were practice, and they were
(24:55):
also practiced at erasing all the norms, exactly as Hitler
did gradually. Just last week, Bob Woodward can the story
of the ex Congressman Moe Brooks, one that Jonathan Carl
had written about last year about Trump calling Brooks while
Brooks was running for Senate and Trump had already endorsed him.
Mobrooks might have been Trump's wildest fascist ally in the
(25:19):
coup attempt of January twenty twenty one, but now Trump
needed a favor four favors. Actually, he wanted mow Brooks
to publicly call for Biden to be removed from the
White House. This is in twenty twenty one. He wanted
Brooks to publicly call for an immediate new election and
he wanted Brooks to publicly insist that Trump be reinstated.
(25:41):
In short, he wanted Brooks to make demands that could
easily have actually talched off a full scale civil war overnight.
Maybe the real story there was mo Brooks declined, whereupon
Trump withdrew his endorsement. Brooks lost the primary and has
not been heard from since. You do not disobey the furer.
(26:05):
Carl also wrote that the reason the same Republicans who
attacked Trump after the coup all did a one point
eighty and began making excuses for him was that Trump
called Ronald McDaniel on the morning of his last day
in office, January twentieth, and told her that if they
didn't get in line, he would be leaving the Republican
Party to form his own party. So when it comes
(26:28):
out that there were deleted tweets criticizing Trump about January sixth, yesterday,
it was Chris la Sevita, one of Trump's twenty twenty
four campaign managers, turned out to have been anti Trump
on January sixth, even talked about removing him in from office.
In the last two weeks of the administration. Oh oh no, no,
(26:49):
no no, I was just retweeting. Retweets are not endorsements.
When you ask why no Republican breaks with Trump, even
as he has everything about Hitler going for him except
the mustache, sh it's because for nearly four years Trump
has been holding the Republican Party hostage. Do it my way,
(27:13):
or you will be the third party and the Trump
Party will be the second party. John carl also wrote
of what the House January sixth committee had found about
Trump's final days but did not put before the public.
The Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and its Chief of Staff
James McConville, had announced that the military would play no
role in determining the outcome of the twenty twenty election,
(27:35):
nor in the transition of power. And this infuriated Trump,
who was busy huddling with Jeff Clark also on that
list for Attorney General that came out the other day,
and other experts like Sidney Powell and the guy from
overstock dot com about having the military seize the voting
machines and declaring martial law. And this was the new
part Trump quote sent top aide Johnny McAtee to warn
(27:59):
Pentagon leaders that Trump was irate. Mcintee relayed Trump's concerns
to Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, and took some notes
on the conversation to pass back to the West Wing.
And there is the note, torn in pieces in a
Trumpian prepubescent rage, taped back together by aids more loyal
to your National Archives than to Trump. Quote Chris Miller
(28:20):
spoke to both of them and anticipates no more statements
coming out. If another happens, he will fire them unquote.
And there it is the twenty twenty Trumpian warm up
for twenty twenty five, when all the generals who are
disloyal to Trump will be fired because, as John Kelly
finally put on the record, the generals he wants, the
(28:41):
generals he will get next time will be just like Hitler's,
and all those generals who are loyal to Trump will
not be fired. They will be firing at you and me.
There is, of course, one note in this nightmare orchestra
(29:02):
that does not seem to be in tune with the
rest of Trump. As Hitler, he is specific, repetitive, almost
boringly angry about his unprecedented, unmatched support of Jewish people
until you listen carefully, when you realize it's not supportive
(29:22):
Jewish people at all. It's just another anti Semitic trope,
and it is based on the idea that Jews are
loyal not to America or whatever country they live in,
but to Israel. And Israel is part of something even
darker within Trump's world. It is the way he has
got in America's evangelicals decide with him no matter what,
(29:43):
because the evangelicals love Israel. Israel has to be protected
because the rapture can only happen after the evangelicals and
God convert all the Jews or kill them. Now, that
might as well be a Trump campaign plank, and it
(30:07):
is another reason John Kelly has to go back to
war before the microphones and cameras. This time, I'll explain
this darkest part of the darkness next quote. No president
has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however,
(30:30):
our wonderful evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than
the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in
the US. Those living in Israel, though, are a different story.
Highest approval rating in the world could easily be pm US.
Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what
they have in Israel before it is too late. The
(30:55):
first thing there, and if you didn't recognize it, that
quote is from Trump. The first thing to note there
is Trump's unshakable conviction. We have been hearing it since
at least twenty sixteen. God knows what Evana Trump heard.
He said it again last week, that Americans of Jewish
heritage are actually loyal first, or should be loyal first,
(31:16):
to Israel people of the Jewish faith, especially those living
in Israel. This is one of the oldest tropes about
that religion, that there is an implied dual citizenship, a
certain uncertainty as to where Jewish loyalty really lies. All
anti Semites depend upon it. All rulers who ever purged
(31:41):
Jews believed it. Adolf Hitler started there in twenty eighteen.
At a Hanukkah event at the White House. Addressing Americans
who happened to be Jewish, he referred to Israel as quote,
your country, not the last time he said that. A
year later, he said, anybody who voted for a Democrat
(32:02):
might be disloyal. This has now become You'd better have
your head examined. He asked a reporter from an Orthodox
Jewish magazine. I did the Heights, I did Jerusalem, I
did Iran. The Iran deal was a disaster, right, and
I also did many other things. Jewish people who live
(32:22):
in the United States don't love Israel enough. Does that
make sense to you. I'm not talking about Orthodox Jews.
I believe we got twenty five percent of the Jewish vote,
and it doesn't make sense. It just seems strange to me.
He might as well have said I fed them fish.
Why didn't they spark like seals? Translation of that quote
(32:45):
and of the social media post. As president, he gave
Israel gifts. He was nice to them, when you know
he could have been openly anti Israel or anti Semitic.
I mean, what's the point of having a cabinet to
keep your Hitler books in? I mean, he didn't do
any now things to the Jews. You'd think the Jews
(33:06):
would fawn over him for not openly persecuting them. Let
me go out of sequence here and cut to the
money quote. US Jews have to get their act together
and appreciate what they have in Israel before it is
too late. I'm going to go out on a limb
here and say that's not subtle it is a threat
or a threat couched as a warning. Either way, it
(33:29):
is a repeat of the way the diseased mind of
Trump works. People hate you. I helped you. You haven't
been grateful enough. Your Jewish Israel, not America, is your country.
I helped Israel. If I'm not there to help Israel,
you'll be sorry. So you better start supporting me more
or else. But maybe the most important part of that
(33:53):
post is the seemingly throwaway reference to the evangelicals. It
actually explains the whole goddamned thing. He says, our wonderful evangelicals. Sorry,
these are religious nuts who will support him no matter
what because they think he is part of the most
screwball Bible prophecy of all of the many screwball Bible prophecies.
(34:18):
He thinks they are far more appreciative of his support
for Israel than our American Jews. The Trump and tell
here is adding the phrase somewhat surprisingly. This is his
standard misdirection, making it seem as if he doesn't understand
something quote or somewhat surprisingly that always means he understands
it completely. He realizes it's dark implications, and he wants
(34:41):
to distance himself from it. He can't sell it to you,
he has to hide it from you. And the obsession
with Israel on the part of those wonderful evangelicals is
as dark as it effing gets. And if you don't
know this yet, sit your ass down. Four and a
half years ago or more, Newsweek printed this remarkable headline quote,
(35:03):
Trump will start the end of the world, claim evangelicals
who support him. Evangelical Christians believe in end times what
they call prophecy and what others call stuff somebody made
up to fleece the gullible and stupid Jerusalem, where Trump
(35:25):
moved the American embassy to is the centerpiece of this
fire and brimstone ending. Let me quote some of the
Newsweek piece on this. What kick starts the end Times
into motion is Israel's political boundaries being re established to
what God promised the Israelites according to the Bible. Nate Pyle,
a pastor and author of a book about Jesus, told
(35:47):
Newsweek most Evangelicals subscribe to a belief in pre millennialism,
the belief that the second Coming of Christ will begin
a one thousand year period where Christ will rule over
a peaceful and prosperous Earth, Neil J. Young, a religion historian,
told Newsweek. Young, who holds a PhD in history from
Columbia University, writes frequently on evangelical culture and politics. Israel
(36:11):
is a key part of this story too, as Christians
believe that events there are fundamental to bringing about the
end times. Young continued. Meanwhile, the evangelical belief in the
end times also includes the eventual conversion to Christianity of
the Jewish people. The scenario begins when Christ comes to
Earth to take the living Christians who believe in him
(36:32):
to Heaven and resurrect the dead who were true Christians,
an event called the Rapture. Afterward, it is believed that
the Antichrist will reign on Earth during the seven year
period of tribulation. What about my four oh one k
now you didn't mishear anything in there. The evangelical fascination
(36:53):
with Jerusalem is about Christ returning and converting the Jews
or killing them. There is a history of professor at
the University of North Texas named Elizabeth Oldmixon. She studies
nothing but this bizarre connection between the evangelicals and Israel,
and now evangelicals and Israel and Trump. Vox interviewed her
(37:16):
and got to the whole, you know, convert or die thing.
They believe that before Christ will return, She said, there
will be a tribulation where Christ defeats evil. There will
be natural disasters and wars, and perhaps and anti Christ,
as the Book of Revelation notes. Then at the end
of that period, the people of the Mosaic Covenant, including
the Jews, will convert. Then after their conversion, the Great
(37:41):
Millennium starts. The Vox reporter has seen the small problem
in this timeline and quite naturally asks Professor Oldmixon, and
what about the people who don't convert? What becomes of them?
Old Mixon quote, Well, according to the evangelicals who believe this,
(38:03):
they'll end up with the of the unsaved, which means
they'll be wiped out and sent to Hell. Well, there
you have it. Trump's support for Israel, his easiest, most
sellable defense against the charge that he is Hitler nineteen
thirty two, is based on his need for Evangelicals to
(38:25):
support him and the Evangelicals support Israel, because later a
little later here in the timeline, it's revealed that all
the Jews are to be converted or killed. So, if
you want to take the darkest view of that last
sentence from Trump, US Jews have to get their act
together and appreciate what they have in Israel before it
(38:47):
is too late. He's literally warning them about annihilation. Where
have we heard this before? More importantly, how do we
stop it? That wonderfully titled Bill Crystal column yesterday, I
Track Wrong Track noted that to some degree, the cynical
(39:08):
and useless Governor Sinunu was right that voters are glazed
over about Trump's hitlary in tendencies and anti democracy hints.
But Crystal notes that an outfit called Blueprint tested several phrases,
several political campaign phrases with focus groups, and one horrified them.
(39:28):
And what we need right now is horrified. As Crystal wrote,
what did move the needle was this message. Nearly half
of Donald Trump's cabinet have refused to endorse him. When
Trump learned during the Capital riot that his supporters were
threatening to kill his own vice president, he said so
what and refused to do anything to assure the vice
(39:50):
president was safe. Republican governors, senators, and House members have
all said the same thing. We can't give Trump another
four years as president. Crystal continues, as soon as the
message turned from an abstract argument against Trump into an
unambiguous case that Trump's own former allies were making against him,
(40:11):
it became the single most persuasive line tested by Blueprint.
It was stronger even than abortion rights and social security.
In other words, hearing about Trump's on fitness from people
who worked with him and from Republicans one would expect
to defend him seems to make a difference. I think
the takeaway here is pretty obvious. Crystal concludes. Voters have
(40:35):
become inured to many shocking things about Trump, but maybe
the one thing that can shake them out of that
torpor is people who knew or worked with Trump stepping
up to make the case from their own experience. I
wonder who he means. I will also suggest in conclusion
(40:59):
that however slowly they work, words can work. They are
not the solution, but they open doors to the solution.
On this podcast, starting in September twenty twenty two, I
began one night by saying these words, we must face
the reality that Trump is America's hitler. We must use
the real words. There are no more dog whistles as
(41:22):
of now, as of this weekend, as of this morning,
they have begun to salute him as others saluted Hitler.
They have begun to play the music and chant the
slogans of QAnon. They have begun to weave in the
sing song melodies of the televangelists and the Christo fascists.
They have stopped pretending, So too, must we stop pretending.
(41:43):
America's Hitler is here. John Kelly knows this. John Kelly
is now the embodiment of the Trump cabinet members who
all know this, who appear in the Blueprint focus group.
It is time for John Kelly to call the news conference.
(42:05):
He and America's other real patriots, real generals, real bureaucrats,
even real political operatives. They can get up there and
tell what they heard and give the forces of democracy
a slightly better chance. On November fifth, name names general,
(42:25):
and the names are Trump and Hitler. Good morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Oldman is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Countdown with Keith Olderman is a production of iHeartRadio Now.
As Andrew Lawrence of Media Matters put it perfectly, the
(00:26):
woke mob is coming after Hitler. The day after General
John Kelly's confirmation to The Atlantic that Trump personally said
to him that he wanted generals like Hitler's generals, no
Republican condemned Trump, and several, like Governor Son who knew
of New Hampshire, defended Trump in the same matter of
(00:47):
fact condescending way the Germans and some Americans dismissed and
defended Hitler literally a century ago. Well, he didn't really
say it, and even if he did, he didn't really
mean it. And even if he meant it, he really
wouldn't try it, And even if he tried it, he
really wouldn't get away with it. General Kelly needs to
(01:07):
now hold a news conference, an open event, national Press
Club in DC or wherever he can get a place
cheap and lay it all out on the record in
front of the cameras and the microphones for an hour
or ninety minutes longer if he can get others from
the Trump Reign of terror and error to join him there,
(01:29):
And that is a possibility others. Selena Wong of ABC
is quoting the former national security official Olivia Troy, who
told her military leaders who have served in the Trump
administration are weighing the following on whether to go on
the record against Trump. Is it hurtful or helpful to
the military, and does it politicize them even more? Troy
(01:52):
also says these military leaders are naturally enough calculating the
human equation. What risk does saying something put them at?
What risk does it put their families at? And how
how much exponentially higher does that risk become if Trump wins. Anyway,
(02:12):
no offense meant with this. We may have been fetishizing
the military since nine to eleven, but no one will
deny that its people have a different kind of courage
than the rest of us do, and as a baseline
it is indelibly admirable. But the nation has never been
at greater risk than it is right now, never including
(02:33):
the Civil War. And that is even clearer if we
are just talking about the military, because if Trump now wins,
the military ceases to be what it has been since
June fourteenth, seventeen seventy five, when the Continental Army was founded.
It was founded as a force to defend this land
(02:55):
and its people and its freedoms from tyranny, not to
become an instrument by which a scumbag like Trump and
the whole of little scumbags around him can enforce tyranny
against America and Americans. That is the choice, General, a
free America more or less, or an absolute dictatorship where you, sir,
(03:19):
are expected to shoot Trump's American critics. Period. The more
stars on a military man or woman's shoulders, the more
you hear them talk about the privilege and responsibility of
serving and defending this nation. Well, the price of the
responsibility part has just come due. General Kelly, you had
(03:43):
the guts to tell the Trump Hitler story on the
record finally, and the fascism part on audio finally, and
the Republicans like Chris Sinunu dismissed it and you as
part of a political campaign and ultraliberalism. And Sinunu explained
that we've all heard a lot of extreme things about
Donald Trump and a lot of extreme things from Donald Trump,
(04:04):
and it's kind of baked into the vote. And he says,
the polls show nobody cares, and not once did it
ever seem to register with this idiot Sununu or the
other Republicans who even referenced this yesterday, that we are
not talking about a vote, we are talking about death camps.
And Sununu is left almost literally explaining that it's just
(04:26):
the woke mob coming for Hitler and General and to
the military leader, friends of Olivia, Troy, if that doesn't
get you to sit down at Adias at the National
Press Club and do as much for this country as
if you were personally subduing the nine to eleven hijackers
as they boarded the planes. Maybe this from the dumbest
(04:48):
man in America. Brian Kilmead from Fox News, gradually building
his rationalization to the point where he comes this close
to saying that, yeah, maybe Trump shouldn't have mentioned Hitler,
but it's not like he was wrong about Hitler, because
certainly Hitler Generals did a lot of good things. Maybe
this will get you onto that stage in front of
(05:10):
those microphones. General, it's not your job to reign in
the president. It's your job to do with the president wants.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And then you factor in the fact that he runs
his own company, coming from the business world, the first
one we've ever had it's not even a public company.
And then he obviously has frustration, and I could absolutely
see him going, now, you know what, it would be
great to have German generals that actually do what we
ask them to do, knowing that's maybe not fully being
cognizant of the third rail of German general's we're Nazis
(05:38):
and whatever.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Great general's bad boss, General Kelly, we aren't an inflection
point right now as certainly as we were at Yorktown
or Gettysburg or Normandy, except that with just words you
can prevent the bloodshed that will happen not on one battlefield,
(05:59):
at home or abroad, but in every quarter of this
nation to some great degree or just to some small degree,
because bloodshed and the threat of it will be the
essence of a Trump dictatorship. And bluntly, General, you helped
get us here because while you were witnessing this madman
in real time yearned for a military personally sworn to
(06:23):
him as the Wehrmacht was to Hitler, you said nothing. Then, well,
now you are talking, and the test of your patriotism,
to say nothing of the test of the chance for
this nation to still exist five years from now in
something like its current form depends on you winning the
(06:44):
Battle of Trump, because I don't know where you were
on Saturday October twentieth, nineteen seventy three. Your biography says
you had gone into the reserves, so in your early
twenties you could finish your degree at UMass Boston. So
maybe you watched the Special Watergate Council Archibald Cox's press
(07:04):
conference that afternoon at the National Press Club, where Cox
spoke so modestly, so bluntly, so self abnegatingly about the
crimes of Richard Nixon that he not only broke Nixon
and precipitated Nixon's infamous Saturday Night massacre, firing Cox, forcing
the resignations of the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General
(07:25):
hours later when they wouldn't fire Cox. Cox not only
did that, but more importantly, his honesty, his patriotism was
so obvious and unanswerable that when Nixon acted in a
show of force that he was certain was going to
win Watergate for him and make his opponents afraid of him,
America instead sided with Archie Cox and the truth and
(07:48):
the investigation, and Nixon that night became an ex president,
waiting to happen. General Kelly, this country may be too
far gone for one man to make a public creed
decur or twenty of them to make them, and for
that to save the nation. But you right now are
(08:08):
our best chance, and maybe our last chance before the election.
Get up there and tell what you told. Jeffrey Goldberg
of The Atlantic. Cite as many dates and details as
you can put Trump's invoking of Hitler on the record.
Tell them about Trump calling the American dead of World
(08:29):
War One in France suckers and losers. Tell them. Tell
them live on CNN, on MSNBC, on CBS, ABC, NBC,
live on Fox, if Fox has the guts to do it,
tell them what you told. My friend Michael Schmid of
the New York Times.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Too, And of course if you knows history. Again, I
think he's lacking a man. But if you know what
you know him, it was all about it. You would
be pretty hard to make an argument that you did
anything good.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
So what would you What would you say when he
said to you that Hitler did a lot of good things?
Speaker 4 (09:12):
I tell him that, I said, yes, sir. If you
first of all, you should never say that.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
But if you knew what mister Kila was all about
from the beginning to the end.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Uh. Everything he did was to one of his racist,
fascist uh life you know, you know philosophy, so that
nothing he did you could argue was good. It was
certainly not done for the right reason.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And he would occasionally say that. By the way, the
New York Times put all that below the fold of
the front page, under all the horse race stories and
political strategy and polling. The way the Times coincidentally buried
Watergate for a year until Archie Cox held his press
(10:06):
conference fifty one years ago last Sunday, Do it general
alert the media because the media is obviously no longer
alert to threats, because the media has forgotten its oath,
unofficial as it is, and especially because your oath, Sir,
to serve this nation, and if need be, to save
(10:30):
this nation, is neither unofficial nor forgotten. It is hard
to believe that right now, in the rankings of nonpartisan
patriotic service to this country, the ill fated former New
(10:50):
York Times columnist William Crystal is far far ahead of
The Times itself, and ahead of dozens of other terrified, lazy,
and ultimately incompetent news outlets. Because just the headline of
the column that Bill Crystal and Andrew Egger wrote for
The Bulwark Reich Track Wrong Track, is gutsier than anything
(11:15):
that's been in The New York Times in a decade,
because they are recognizing what has been undeniable for at
least a year, almost certainly for nine years, has been
clearly true for thirty four years. Trump is our Hitler,
not the nineteen forty Hitler, not nineteen thirty eight Hitler,
(11:35):
but nineteen thirty two Hitler, the one who, had he
been stopped then would not have destroyed Europe. The now
is the last chance to prevent Hitler Hitler. That's who
Trump has become. That's who Trump is today. And some
of us have known this for thirty four years, since
(11:58):
late in the summer of nineteen ninety, that is, when
a writer named Marie Brenner published a profile of Trump
and his first wife in Vanity Fair magazine. It is
always useful to quote several paragraphs of this article in
full September nineteen ninety quote Trump appears to take aspects
(12:19):
of his German background seriously. John Walter works for the
Trump Organization, and when he visits Donald in his office,
Ivanna told a friend he clicks his heels and says
Hyle Hitler, possibly as a family joke. Last April, perhaps
in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivannah Trump told her
(12:41):
lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband
reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order,
which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy
now guards a copy of My New Order in a
closet at his office as if it were a grenade.
Hitler's speeches from his earliest days up through the Phony
(13:03):
War of nineteen thirty nine reveal his extraordinary ability as
a master propagandist. Did your cousin John give you the
Hitler speeches, I asked Trump. Trump hesitated, who told you that?
I don't remember. I said, Actually, it was my friend
Marty Davis from Paramount, who gave me a copy of
(13:25):
Mind comp and he's a Jew. I did give him
a book about Hitler. Marty Davis said, but it was
My New Order Hitler's speeches, not mine. COMF I thought
he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but
I'm not Jewish. Later, Trump returned to this subject, if
I had these speeches, and I am not saying that
(13:46):
I do. I would never read them. There was another
quote in that Vanity Fair article from thirty four years ago,
attributed to one of his attorneys. Donald the unnamed lawyer said,
is a believer in the big lie theory. If you
say something again and again, people will believe you. Nineteen ninety.
(14:13):
It was all there in nineteen ninety from I would
never read these speeches to giving speeches even Bill Crystal
recognizes as Hitlarian. This subject requires more time. I want
to give this entire episode to it, because Trump is
Hitler nineteen thirty two, and General Kelly has to hold
(14:37):
that news conference because the evil of Trump and the
threat he poses of re enacting all or part of
the actual Nazi nightmare only here is accelerating and the
days are down to a precious few. I ask, do
you remember the shock of eleven months ago? It's like
(14:58):
living next to a bad intersection where there's a car
crash every hour and being asked about one specifically from
November of last year, But from November of last year
when Trump used one Hitlarian word and the critics recognized it,
and when the critics erupted. Trump's spokesman vowed that for
(15:19):
those critics quote, their entire existence will be crushed when
Trump returns to the White House. Remember that I will
continue from that point. That's next. This is countdown. Nearly
a year ago, in a five day span in November,
(15:42):
America seemed to be getting the point. Quote. Trump calls
political enemies vermin, echoing dictators, Hitler, Mussolini. That was a
headline in the Washington Post. Quote Trump compares political foes
to vermin on Veterans Day, echoing Nazi propaganda. That was
the headline in Forbes magazine. Quote it's a official with Vermin.
(16:05):
Trump is now using straight up Nazi talk. That was
the headline in The New Republic. Trump is Hitler. Quote.
Those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly snowflakes,
and their entire existence will be crushed when Trump returns
to the White House. Unquote. That was the spokesman Stephen Chung.
(16:30):
Later that day, Chung realized, or somebody realized for him,
what he had actually said. Chung insisted he had intended
to say, and their sad, miserable existence will be crushed
when Trump returns to the White House, and that Chung
or whoever thought that for him, thought the horrifying part
of his threat was the word entire rather than the
phrase existence will be crushed. That told us all we
(16:54):
really needed to know that Trump and Stephen Chung and
Steven Miller and all the others know exactly what they
are saying and what it means and who they are paraphrasing.
Moments after Chung's correction, Trump raised the stakes again. He
(17:15):
sampled from another dictatorship, Jack Smith, Andrew Weissman, Lisa Monico,
the team of losers and misfits from crewe and all
the rest of the radical left zelots and thugs who
have been working illegally for years to take me down
will end up in a mental institution by the time
my next term as president is successfully completed. Unquote, Trump wrote,
(17:37):
forced psychiatric institutionalization was less the Nazis than it was
the Soviets, But the Nazis happily gassed those they deemed
mentally impaired, along with gassing everybody else. For a time
after this, Trump seemed to understand that to keep spaces
between his overt quotations of, and imitations of, and emulations
(18:00):
of Hitler was his way to slip them past those
who were looking for excuses to not believe that he
was Hitler nineteen thirty two, or perhaps with his deteriorating mind,
the spaces were inadvertent and simply accidentally protected him. But
then something else happened. It was in September last year,
twenty twenty three, in Dubuque in Iowa, when he began
(18:21):
to get into the Nazi obsession with blood and genetics.
It's in the genes, as he said last week, and
how the outsiders, the Auschlanders, are poisoning our blood. He
didn't call them Auschlanders, of course, he called them immigrants. Quote,
it's the blood of our country. What they're doing is
(18:44):
destroying our country. Then November ninth, twenty twenty three, inside
the one year mark until the election, at one o
three in the morning, quote, we are one movement, one people,
one family, and one glorious nation. Sounds like he found
(19:05):
that book that man Davis gave him. Huh. Last Veterans Day,
at one twenty five in the afternoon, Trump wrote, in
honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledged
to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists,
and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the
confines of our country. The threat from outside forces is
(19:28):
far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within.
Minutes later at Claremont Ne, Hampshire, he liked that one
so much he read it to the crowd on Veterans Day,
veterans many of whom still alive, who actually fought to
kill the last political strong man who talked about the
communist vermin and how he would root them out Hitler,
(19:51):
And now Trump was telling them about the communist vermin
and how he would root them out. That was when
Trump began to talk about the threat from within. Hitler
had been more explicit, but not much. The enemy from
within was Hitler's phrase, and by this past summer Trump
had realized that the enemy from within, or the enemy within,
(20:13):
was far better, and he took Hitler's phrase and he
made that one his own. Trump advocates for conformity and
suppression of descent. One people, one family, one glorious nation.
For Hitler, it was a little bit more lyrical. One people,
one realm, one leader. And then Trump moved to the
(20:34):
sanguine imagery migrants poisoning the blood of our country. Hitler
began with the evil nonsense of pure Aryan blood and
ended by killing those who did not quote have unquote it.
Trump's puppeteer, Stephen Miller, has revealed plans for quote vast
(20:55):
holding facilities that would function as staging centers, built by
the military and operated by Homeland Security, enabling quote Trump
to unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement
the most spectacular migration crackdown. Hitler's view was identical, his
terminology simpler. He just called them concentration camps. Steven Miller's
(21:19):
rapture at this idea underscores that we are not merely
witnessing Trump using the latest in a decade's long list
of bad advertising slogans for products that he will never deliver.
He means it, they mean it, and as what John
Kelly told us yesterday and the day before meant, they
do not mean it, just rhetorically quote. Any activists who
(21:42):
doubt Trump's resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error.
Miller said, the immigration legal activists won't know what's happening.
Then there is the question of how to make Trump's
Hitlarian plans look legal. RUSS vote, The Project twenty twenty
five architect helpfully mapped out how to turn the Apartment
(22:05):
of Justice into a real life or Wellian and Hitlary
in Revenge Factory. You don't need a statutory change at all,
he said, you need a mindset change. You need an
attorney general in a White House Counsel's office that don't
view themselves as trying to protect the department from the president. Hm,
(22:25):
who is that? They mentioned the other days on the
short list for Trump's attorney general. His concierge judge in Florida,
Aileen Cannon, an attorney general doesn't view themselves as trying
to protect the department from the president. Well, she's got
that down. RUSS vote, meanwhile, is now referenced by Axios
(22:46):
as being behind a plan to apply this same idea
to the military. Quote rigorously review all general and flag
officer promotions to make sure the senior military officials line
up with Trump's philosophies. In other words, John Kelly can
go to Hell and all the other John Kelly's with
him and drip by drip, just as in Nazi Germany,
the evil grows and grows slowly, but certainly it's barely
(23:10):
bigger than the last time you look. But it is bigger.
This was all comparatively new a year ago. Then, weeks
after the outlines of Project twenty twenty five became clear,
the Washington Post first reported they were drafting plans to
potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on Trump's first day in office,
(23:31):
to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.
The military General Kelly, that would be, you go out
and shoot some American civilians. The more unarmed, the better.
That's your choice. Get up and speak or get out
and shoot. And of course Trump and Stephen Miller waiting
(23:52):
for the bell to ring, quoting the New York Times,
because Trump plans to scour the country for unauthorized immigrants
and deport people by the millions per year. The newest
version of this promise, obviously is fifteen million in US total.
And as I first pointed out in twenty sixteen, we
really do need to remember that it's not as if
non immigrants wouldn't try to stop this, And of course
(24:13):
when they did try to stop it, they would go
to those vast holding facilities that would function as staging
centers along with the migrants, those vast holding facilities that
are just camps, camps with concentration concentration camps. It must
also be caveated that Trump to some degree tried to
(24:35):
do this in twenty seventeen and failed, But as with
January sixth, we must see it from his diseased point
of view. They were not failures. Those events and January sixth,
they were not failures. They were practice, and they were
(24:55):
also practiced at erasing all the norms, exactly as Hitler
did gradually. Just last week, Bob Woodward can the story
of the ex Congressman Moe Brooks, one that Jonathan Carl
had written about last year about Trump calling Brooks while
Brooks was running for Senate and Trump had already endorsed him.
Mobrooks might have been Trump's wildest fascist ally in the
(25:19):
coup attempt of January twenty twenty one, but now Trump
needed a favor four favors. Actually, he wanted mow Brooks
to publicly call for Biden to be removed from the
White House. This is in twenty twenty one. He wanted
Brooks to publicly call for an immediate new election and
he wanted Brooks to publicly insist that Trump be reinstated.
(25:41):
In short, he wanted Brooks to make demands that could
easily have actually talched off a full scale civil war overnight.
Maybe the real story there was mo Brooks declined, whereupon
Trump withdrew his endorsement. Brooks lost the primary and has
not been heard from since. You do not disobey the furer.
(26:05):
Carl also wrote that the reason the same Republicans who
attacked Trump after the coup all did a one point
eighty and began making excuses for him was that Trump
called Ronald McDaniel on the morning of his last day
in office, January twentieth, and told her that if they
didn't get in line, he would be leaving the Republican
Party to form his own party. So when it comes
(26:28):
out that there were deleted tweets criticizing Trump about January sixth, yesterday,
it was Chris la Sevita, one of Trump's twenty twenty
four campaign managers, turned out to have been anti Trump
on January sixth, even talked about removing him in from office.
In the last two weeks of the administration. Oh oh no, no,
(26:49):
no no, I was just retweeting. Retweets are not endorsements.
When you ask why no Republican breaks with Trump, even
as he has everything about Hitler going for him except
the mustache, sh it's because for nearly four years Trump
has been holding the Republican Party hostage. Do it my way,
(27:13):
or you will be the third party and the Trump
Party will be the second party. John carl also wrote
of what the House January sixth committee had found about
Trump's final days but did not put before the public.
The Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and its Chief of Staff
James McConville, had announced that the military would play no
role in determining the outcome of the twenty twenty election,
(27:35):
nor in the transition of power. And this infuriated Trump,
who was busy huddling with Jeff Clark also on that
list for Attorney General that came out the other day,
and other experts like Sidney Powell and the guy from
overstock dot com about having the military seize the voting
machines and declaring martial law. And this was the new
part Trump quote sent top aide Johnny McAtee to warn
(27:59):
Pentagon leaders that Trump was irate. Mcintee relayed Trump's concerns
to Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, and took some notes
on the conversation to pass back to the West Wing.
And there is the note, torn in pieces in a
Trumpian prepubescent rage, taped back together by aids more loyal
to your National Archives than to Trump. Quote Chris Miller
(28:20):
spoke to both of them and anticipates no more statements
coming out. If another happens, he will fire them unquote.
And there it is the twenty twenty Trumpian warm up
for twenty twenty five, when all the generals who are
disloyal to Trump will be fired because, as John Kelly
finally put on the record, the generals he wants, the
(28:41):
generals he will get next time will be just like Hitler's,
and all those generals who are loyal to Trump will
not be fired. They will be firing at you and me.
There is, of course, one note in this nightmare orchestra
(29:02):
that does not seem to be in tune with the
rest of Trump. As Hitler, he is specific, repetitive, almost
boringly angry about his unprecedented, unmatched support of Jewish people
until you listen carefully, when you realize it's not supportive
(29:22):
Jewish people at all. It's just another anti Semitic trope,
and it is based on the idea that Jews are
loyal not to America or whatever country they live in,
but to Israel. And Israel is part of something even
darker within Trump's world. It is the way he has
got in America's evangelicals decide with him no matter what,
(29:43):
because the evangelicals love Israel. Israel has to be protected
because the rapture can only happen after the evangelicals and
God convert all the Jews or kill them. Now, that
might as well be a Trump campaign plank, and it
(30:07):
is another reason John Kelly has to go back to
war before the microphones and cameras. This time, I'll explain
this darkest part of the darkness next quote. No president
has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however,
(30:30):
our wonderful evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than
the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in
the US. Those living in Israel, though, are a different story.
Highest approval rating in the world could easily be pm US.
Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what
they have in Israel before it is too late. The
(30:55):
first thing there, and if you didn't recognize it, that
quote is from Trump. The first thing to note there
is Trump's unshakable conviction. We have been hearing it since
at least twenty sixteen. God knows what Evana Trump heard.
He said it again last week, that Americans of Jewish
heritage are actually loyal first, or should be loyal first,
(31:16):
to Israel people of the Jewish faith, especially those living
in Israel. This is one of the oldest tropes about
that religion, that there is an implied dual citizenship, a
certain uncertainty as to where Jewish loyalty really lies. All
anti Semites depend upon it. All rulers who ever purged
(31:41):
Jews believed it. Adolf Hitler started there in twenty eighteen.
At a Hanukkah event at the White House. Addressing Americans
who happened to be Jewish, he referred to Israel as quote,
your country, not the last time he said that. A
year later, he said, anybody who voted for a Democrat
(32:02):
might be disloyal. This has now become You'd better have
your head examined. He asked a reporter from an Orthodox
Jewish magazine. I did the Heights, I did Jerusalem, I
did Iran. The Iran deal was a disaster, right, and
I also did many other things. Jewish people who live
(32:22):
in the United States don't love Israel enough. Does that
make sense to you. I'm not talking about Orthodox Jews.
I believe we got twenty five percent of the Jewish vote,
and it doesn't make sense. It just seems strange to me.
He might as well have said I fed them fish.
Why didn't they spark like seals? Translation of that quote
(32:45):
and of the social media post. As president, he gave
Israel gifts. He was nice to them, when you know
he could have been openly anti Israel or anti Semitic.
I mean, what's the point of having a cabinet to
keep your Hitler books in? I mean, he didn't do
any now things to the Jews. You'd think the Jews
(33:06):
would fawn over him for not openly persecuting them. Let
me go out of sequence here and cut to the
money quote. US Jews have to get their act together
and appreciate what they have in Israel before it is
too late. I'm going to go out on a limb
here and say that's not subtle it is a threat
or a threat couched as a warning. Either way, it
(33:29):
is a repeat of the way the diseased mind of
Trump works. People hate you. I helped you. You haven't
been grateful enough. Your Jewish Israel, not America, is your country.
I helped Israel. If I'm not there to help Israel,
you'll be sorry. So you better start supporting me more
or else. But maybe the most important part of that
(33:53):
post is the seemingly throwaway reference to the evangelicals. It
actually explains the whole goddamned thing. He says, our wonderful evangelicals. Sorry,
these are religious nuts who will support him no matter
what because they think he is part of the most
screwball Bible prophecy of all of the many screwball Bible prophecies.
(34:18):
He thinks they are far more appreciative of his support
for Israel than our American Jews. The Trump and tell
here is adding the phrase somewhat surprisingly. This is his
standard misdirection, making it seem as if he doesn't understand
something quote or somewhat surprisingly that always means he understands
it completely. He realizes it's dark implications, and he wants
(34:41):
to distance himself from it. He can't sell it to you,
he has to hide it from you. And the obsession
with Israel on the part of those wonderful evangelicals is
as dark as it effing gets. And if you don't
know this yet, sit your ass down. Four and a
half years ago or more, Newsweek printed this remarkable headline quote,
(35:03):
Trump will start the end of the world, claim evangelicals
who support him. Evangelical Christians believe in end times what
they call prophecy and what others call stuff somebody made
up to fleece the gullible and stupid Jerusalem, where Trump
(35:25):
moved the American embassy to is the centerpiece of this
fire and brimstone ending. Let me quote some of the
Newsweek piece on this. What kick starts the end Times
into motion is Israel's political boundaries being re established to
what God promised the Israelites according to the Bible. Nate Pyle,
a pastor and author of a book about Jesus, told
(35:47):
Newsweek most Evangelicals subscribe to a belief in pre millennialism,
the belief that the second Coming of Christ will begin
a one thousand year period where Christ will rule over
a peaceful and prosperous Earth, Neil J. Young, a religion historian,
told Newsweek. Young, who holds a PhD in history from
Columbia University, writes frequently on evangelical culture and politics. Israel
(36:11):
is a key part of this story too, as Christians
believe that events there are fundamental to bringing about the
end times. Young continued. Meanwhile, the evangelical belief in the
end times also includes the eventual conversion to Christianity of
the Jewish people. The scenario begins when Christ comes to
Earth to take the living Christians who believe in him
(36:32):
to Heaven and resurrect the dead who were true Christians,
an event called the Rapture. Afterward, it is believed that
the Antichrist will reign on Earth during the seven year
period of tribulation. What about my four oh one k
now you didn't mishear anything in there. The evangelical fascination
(36:53):
with Jerusalem is about Christ returning and converting the Jews
or killing them. There is a history of professor at
the University of North Texas named Elizabeth Oldmixon. She studies
nothing but this bizarre connection between the evangelicals and Israel,
and now evangelicals and Israel and Trump. Vox interviewed her
(37:16):
and got to the whole, you know, convert or die thing.
They believe that before Christ will return, She said, there
will be a tribulation where Christ defeats evil. There will
be natural disasters and wars, and perhaps and anti Christ,
as the Book of Revelation notes. Then at the end
of that period, the people of the Mosaic Covenant, including
the Jews, will convert. Then after their conversion, the Great
(37:41):
Millennium starts. The Vox reporter has seen the small problem
in this timeline and quite naturally asks Professor Oldmixon, and
what about the people who don't convert? What becomes of them?
Old Mixon quote, Well, according to the evangelicals who believe this,
(38:03):
they'll end up with the of the unsaved, which means
they'll be wiped out and sent to Hell. Well, there
you have it. Trump's support for Israel, his easiest, most
sellable defense against the charge that he is Hitler nineteen
thirty two, is based on his need for Evangelicals to
(38:25):
support him and the Evangelicals support Israel, because later a
little later here in the timeline, it's revealed that all
the Jews are to be converted or killed. So, if
you want to take the darkest view of that last
sentence from Trump, US Jews have to get their act
together and appreciate what they have in Israel before it
(38:47):
is too late. He's literally warning them about annihilation. Where
have we heard this before? More importantly, how do we
stop it? That wonderfully titled Bill Crystal column yesterday, I
Track Wrong Track noted that to some degree, the cynical
(39:08):
and useless Governor Sinunu was right that voters are glazed
over about Trump's hitlary in tendencies and anti democracy hints.
But Crystal notes that an outfit called Blueprint tested several phrases,
several political campaign phrases with focus groups, and one horrified them.
(39:28):
And what we need right now is horrified. As Crystal wrote,
what did move the needle was this message. Nearly half
of Donald Trump's cabinet have refused to endorse him. When
Trump learned during the Capital riot that his supporters were
threatening to kill his own vice president, he said so
what and refused to do anything to assure the vice
(39:50):
president was safe. Republican governors, senators, and House members have
all said the same thing. We can't give Trump another
four years as president. Crystal continues, as soon as the
message turned from an abstract argument against Trump into an
unambiguous case that Trump's own former allies were making against him,
(40:11):
it became the single most persuasive line tested by Blueprint.
It was stronger even than abortion rights and social security.
In other words, hearing about Trump's on fitness from people
who worked with him and from Republicans one would expect
to defend him seems to make a difference. I think
the takeaway here is pretty obvious. Crystal concludes. Voters have
(40:35):
become inured to many shocking things about Trump, but maybe
the one thing that can shake them out of that
torpor is people who knew or worked with Trump stepping
up to make the case from their own experience. I
wonder who he means. I will also suggest in conclusion
(40:59):
that however slowly they work, words can work. They are
not the solution, but they open doors to the solution.
On this podcast, starting in September twenty twenty two, I
began one night by saying these words, we must face
the reality that Trump is America's hitler. We must use
the real words. There are no more dog whistles as
(41:22):
of now, as of this weekend, as of this morning,
they have begun to salute him as others saluted Hitler.
They have begun to play the music and chant the
slogans of QAnon. They have begun to weave in the
sing song melodies of the televangelists and the Christo fascists.
They have stopped pretending, So too, must we stop pretending.
(41:43):
America's Hitler is here. John Kelly knows this. John Kelly
is now the embodiment of the Trump cabinet members who
all know this, who appear in the Blueprint focus group.
It is time for John Kelly to call the news conference.
(42:05):
He and America's other real patriots, real generals, real bureaucrats,
even real political operatives. They can get up there and
tell what they heard and give the forces of democracy
a slightly better chance. On November fifth, name names general,
(42:25):
and the names are Trump and Hitler. Good morning, good afternoon,
good night, and good luck. Countdown with Keith Oldman is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Keith Olbermann
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Intentionally Disturbing
Join me on this podcast as I navigate the murky waters of human behavior, current events, and personal anecdotes through in-depth interviews with incredible people—all served with a generous helping of sarcasm and satire. After years as a forensic and clinical psychologist, I offer a unique interview style and a low tolerance for bullshit, quickly steering conversations toward depth and darkness. I honor the seriousness while also appreciating wit. I’m your guide through the twisted labyrinth of the human psyche, armed with dark humor and biting wit.