Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz criticized former President Donald Trump’s New York rally at Madison Square Garden, comparing it to a pro-Nazi event held in the same venue in 1939.
Walz shared his thoughts while speaking at an event in Henderson, Nevada, on Sunday. He wasn't alone in that comparison between the Nazi rally and Trump's.
MSNBC showed images of the Nazi rally, complete with goose-stepping and Hitler salutes, during a segment where host Jonathan Capehart accused Trump of holding a fascist event. He said the former president "is once again turning Madison Square Garden into a staging ground for extremism."
As for Walz, he said “There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden.”
The rally held at Madison Square Garden by the American Nazi Party in February 1939 saw 20,000 supporters head to the iconic venue months before World War II began. Drawing its comparison, MSNBC wrote that "Trump, among other things, condemned Americans he disagrees with as “the enemy from within,” while describing the media as “the enemy of the people” — a phrase that echoed, among others, Joseph Stalin."
Walz not only made the comparison but alleged that Trump knew what he was doing.
“And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there,” Walz said.
Trump appeared at the event with his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), as the pair continue to poll around 17%behind Vice President Harris in the state.
“So look, we said we’re all running like everything’s on the line because it is, it is,” Walz said at the event in Nevada. “And I’ve been saying for the last three months or so that [there’ll] be plenty of time for all of us to sleep when we’re dead. Now is not the time, now is not the time.”
This isn’t the first time that Democrats have compared Trump’s words or actions to that of Nazi leaders.
Last year, Trump said during a rally that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country,” a line many compared to words that were written in Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf.”
More recently, during a CNN town hall last week with Anderson Cooper, Harris said that she believes Trump is a fascist.
As for his Sunday rally, New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said on MSNBC that she saw it as him “waving the white flag of surrender.”
“He’s coming back to a city that he knows well. He’s comfortable here,” she said. “Maybe he’d like to sleep in his own bed.”