Monday on CNN’s “Newsroom,” Jan Chamberlin, who opted to quit the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rather than sing at the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump defended comparing Trump to the Adolf Hitler.
Partial transcript as follows:
COSTELLO: Your Facebook position was pretty harsh, you said the choir is endorsing, quote, tyranny and fascism by performing for this man. do you regret those words?
CHAMBERLIN: Not one bit. I totally understand the position of the church and the choir. They are goodwill ambassadors to send hope and love and support to others regardless of political party. And I understand that. What I’m seeing is this goes far beyond any past inaugural situation. I am seeing very similar parallels of fascism, and others see it too. The thing I see in fascism is you have—someone finds a cause that gains people’s trust and sympathy, they find a target to attack, they find military and financial support. I’m seeing the criticism of Mexicans and Muslims, the requirement of Muslims to have to sign on registry, that deeply concerns me.
COSTELLO: There’s been no decision made on any kind of registry for Muslims, i just want to clarify that. But Hitler?
CHAMBERLIN: Okay, thank you.
COSTELLO: Some people say you’ve compared Mr. Trump to Hitler and that just sounds kind of hysterical and over the top.
CHAMBERLIN: I don’t feel hysterical. I feel quite calm as I observe from my personal opinion and have received thousands and thousands of posts and e-mails of support, the concern that people have is they love the choir and they feel that they are giving an endorsement without meaning to, that they support very vile practices and positions that goes against their conscience and it goes against mine as well.
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