Appearing Thursday on MSNBC, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) claimed President Donald Trump’s Wednesday evening rally in Greenville, North Carolina, was reminiscent of Nazi Germany.
A partial transcript is as follows:
HALLIE JACKSON: I want to pick up right where this conversation has left off and your reaction to what you heard at that rally in North Carolina from President Trump overnight.
REP. STEVE COHEN: It was more reminiscent of Germany during the beginnings of the Hitler regime. People yelling send her back was un-American. I fear for the congressmen’s safety. I fear for the safety of other Congresspeople, [Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) in particular, and the other three ladies [Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). The atmosphere that Trump is creating is dangerous to American citizens and that’s abhorrent.
JACKSON: Congressman, there are people who will say your rhetoric right now, evoking the specter of Hitler for example, means you are just as responsible for the heated rhetoric as anybody else.
REP. COHEN: It’s just what it is. That’s where we got crowds get behind a xenophobic, nationalist leader, who took a minority and made them scapegoats, use them as a foil for his political rise to do some of the most awful things that . have ever happened in this world. I had relatives that were killed in the Holocaust. I don’t like it being used. I see the same tactics being used and to bring those racists up to remind people where America could be going is important.