Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) went on a bizarre rant during a CNN interview on Tuesday night in which he compared President Donald Trump to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and suggested that churches “may” be taken over.
“And then I’ve been telling people for a long time now, I’m beginning to see what happened in Germany back in the 1930s,” Clyburn claimed. “I never thought that could happen in this country.”
“How do you elect a person president and then all of a sudden give him the authority to be dictator?” Clyburn continued. “That’s what we’re teetering on here. That’s what Hitler did in Germany. He was elected chancellor and then because he successfully, this precedent, the news media took over the churches. I cannot see that happening here, it may happen, but if it did, that means that the American people are much more, less I should say, intelligent than I think they are.”
CNN’s Chris Cuomo did not push back on Clyburn’s remarks and only responded by saying, “Boy, this is some heavy, these are some heavy days, congressman. Every time we say, ‘oh, it can’t get any crazier than this,’ I have so many welts on my tongue from biting it after saying those things.”
“Ah, but, you know, I joke but just so I keep from crying,” Cuomo continued. “These are hard days and I hope your party is ready to fight for the democracy and find ways to make these Republicans come to their senses.”
WATCH:
Unhinged: Democrat Rep. Jim Clyburn compares President Trump to Hitler.
This is yet another reminder that Joe Biden and the Democrat Party’s calls for unity and are totally bogus. pic.twitter.com/7k1ozuPuoD
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) November 11, 2020
The Daily Wire reported yesterday that Clyburn, 80, suggested during a CNN interview over the weekend that Russian President Vladimir Putin might be behind President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the presidential election, despite ongoing litigation in key battleground states.
“Joe Biden’s been the president-elect for about 24 hours now,” CNN’s Jake Tapper claimed. “President Trump has not conceded the race. Should Trump concede the race? How should president-elect Biden handle this potentially volatile situation?”
“Well, I think Trump should concede,” Clyburn responded. “But I also think that the Republican Party has a responsibility here. This country is bigger than any one person. This democracy is teetering. He called it an inflection point. We are in a very dire set of consequences here. And we had better get hold of ourselves and this country and stop catering to whims of one person.”
“So, it doesn’t matter to me whether or not he concedes. What matters to me is whether or not the Republican Party will step up and help us preserve the integrity of this democracy,” Clyburn continued. “We have been the envy of the world, but we have also received a lot of disdain from places around the world. See, I’m old enough to remember Nikita Khrushchev. I remember that speech at the United Nations when he looked out and says: ‘We will bury you.’”
“I will never forget that,” Clyburn concluded. “And so, I don’t understand how Republicans can allow Putin to dictate the fortunes of this country. And that is what is going on here.”