Democratic Strategist Goes Off the Rails Live on CNN, Makes Disgusting Claim About Trump in Unhinged Rant
Is everything OK with James Carville?
I mean that relatively speaking; nothing’s ever totally OK with the Democratic strategist behind Bill Clinton’s “It’s the economy, stupid.” At the best of times, you want his Starbucks barista to cut him off and remind him to know when to say when.
However, the “Ragin’ Cajun” was more ragin’ than anything else during an appearance on CNN on Monday in which he said that he “refuses to believe” Vice President Kamala Harris can lose the election and that her people need to start telling America that former President Donald Trump will use some penumbrous powers allocated to him if he’s re-elected to “round up domestic enemies.”
His evidence for that? The fact that he’s holding a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City before the election — and the fact that American Nazis held a rally in 1939 at another building then called Madison Square Garden, which no longer exists.
Seriously.
“She needs to start asking Trump about his rally at Madison Square Garden. She needs to start asking Trump who said that he would use the military to round up this political — his domestic political enemies,” Carville said during the Monday segment, as noted by a CNN transcript.
“I think what Trump is saying now is unprecedented. And I’m afraid that people just don’t know how — I don’t know if radical is the word of the things that he’s really proposing. And she’s got to put a light on this — a big, big, shiny light.”
Tapper then asked Carville what he’d be telling Harris’ campaign right now if he were advising them.
“Well, first of all, I have a flood of people say that to use the U.S. military to round up domestic enemies is about [as un]constitutional — [as] anything you can think of, and that he’s holding a rally in Madison Square Garden that, I’m sorry, is a mimic of a rally held on February 20, 1939, by the American Nazi party,” he said.
“And the battle of pressure, I got a call from some Fox entity, saying, ‘What should you say to Trump who wants to arrest his enemies and he’s been the victim of assassination attempt?’ Well, I’m just repeating what Trump is saying. And by the way, the guided shot at him was, I think a registered Republican, some loser that had nothing to do with this.
“But the idea that he can propose these really any democratic authoritarian — Gen. [Mark] Milley says he’s fascist to his core. Gen. Milley was a former joint — head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We’re going to get serious here with the threat that we face with. That’s my — that’s my point. We’re not near serious enough.”
Now, there are two things that are at play here. The first is the comparison of a rally at Madison Square Garden — the premiere indoor venue in the biggest city in the United States — to a rally held by the German American Bund, a Nazi-affiliated U.S. organization, at a different building called Madison Square Garden, also in Manhattan, in 1939.
The second appears to be a reference to a promise by Trump to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport illegal immigrants as part of a solution to the border crisis, I think. (Much of Carville’s rant, as we’ll soon discover, is what would be marked on Wikipedia as [citation needed].) He also references the fact that former Joint Chiefs of Staff head Gen. Mark “White Rage” Milley doesn’t have a high opinion of Trump. There’s a news flash from 2021.
To be fair, Carville isn’t the only Democrat claiming that Trump’s MSG rally is meant to mimic the German American Bund’s rally. The only other one I could find, however, was New York state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who posted this on X:
Let’s be clear. Allowing Trump to hold an event at MSG is equivalent to the infamous Nazis rally at Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939 2/3
— Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal (@bradhoylman) October 9, 2024
And let’s be clear: If you knew who Brad Hoylman-Sigal was before this, you either 1) worked on Brad Hoylman-Sigal’s campaign, 2) are related to Brad Hoylman-Sigal, or 3) are Brad Hoylman-Sigal. Carville, meanwhile, is an omnipresent, hyperventilating fixture on cable news who helped get Bill Clinton and numerous other high-profile Democrats elected. You do the math as to which delusional man is being more dangerous.
Tapper, to be fair, followed up by asking why Carville thought “that Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally is meant to mimic that and not just any other rally in New York.”
“Well, OK, first of all, where’s Harris campaign? Where are normal people campaigning on Oct. 27 before Election Day? They’re generally in places like Cheboygan and Flagstaff and Reno and Macon,” Carville said.
“Battleground states. Yeah, sure,” Tapper said.
“So, he’s — he’s right in front of you. He is telling you. [Former Gen. Michael] Flynn is saying, ‘We’re going to implement this.’ And Trump is saying, ‘We’re going to round up our political enemies.’ And what’s going to happen is if he wins the election? He has positioned to say, ‘I told you all of this, I have the authority of election behind me to round up my political enemies.’ And somehow or another, we’re not getting that word out, and that’s it.
“This is a very — Jake, it’s a very dangerous time when you think about it, and he, he is going full throated authoritarianism. He’s telling people there to beat some woman up at his rally, and he’s going to say, and Michael Flynn is going to say it all, and all of them are going to say, ‘We told you so, and you voted for us.’
“So we have no choice but to arrest our political enemies. That’s literally what’s happening right in front of our face.”
Tapper agreed, as per the transcript, saying someone — it was unclear whether it was Trump or Gen. Flynn — “is stating it pretty directly.” Tapper here too leans into [citation needed] territory; it’s unclear whether or not he meant Flynn or Trump. Flynn, briefly Trump’s national security advisor before legal woes caused him to step aside, has been involved in his own nonprofit and hasn’t been on the campaign trail, for what it’s worth.
Before the segment ended, Carville was asked what his thoughts about who would win if the election were held today.
NEW: Democrat strategist James Carville says he “refuses to believe” Kamala Harris can lose, says Donald Trump is telling people to beat up women at his rallies.
This guy is losing it in real time.
“I refuse to believe that we’re gonna lose. I, I just don’t, I, I, I, I, I… pic.twitter.com/bigmmvqprO
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 14, 2024
“It’d be a white knuckle event,” he said. “I agree. David Plouffe did an interview, I think it was somebody at New York Magazine, and the polls are 48-48. That’s just where they are.”
“I refuse to believe that we’re going to lose. I just don’t have that thought anymore, but we have got to tell people what exactly is at risk here. If we don’t, then they’ll make a choice based on some perceived thing that a migrant is slowing FEMA down or something.
“It makes no sense. But if they’re not making a decision based on the whole body of knowledge about Donald Trump, then I’m afraid we could lose this. If we make our case well, I don’t think we’re going to lose.”
Of course, given the tenor of the interview, if one of Trump’s people said he “refused to believe that we’re going to lose,” Carville would be on CNN the next hour, loudly insisting that Steve Bannon, Nick Fuentes, and the ghost of Judge Crater were going to be at a huge Klan rally Trump was holding, telling y’all that he was going to use English common law precedent to track down every Democratic voter and send them to a penal colony in Australia. Carville cannot be taken totally seriously at the best of times, and at the worst of times, his hyperbole about his political adversaries veers into blatant disinformation.
As for why Trump is at Madison Square Garden, if your best explanation is that the German American Bund held an event there — well, not really there, but at another building in Manhattan called Madison Square Garden, which was located at a completely different site in Manhattan — you need to think harder.
Yes, the Trump campaign relies partly on its ground game, but not entirely upon it, and large rallies in big cities draw attention. What could draw more attention than the biggest venue in the biggest city in America, which just happens to be Trump’s hometown? And this isn’t even to mention the fact that numerous congressional seats in the New York City area are swing seats.
But no: Nazis! Dystopian round-ups! Beating up women! It sounds like the plot to some awful B-movie, but is instead the fever dream being cooked up by James Carville and entertained by Jake Tapper.
This is unhinged stuff — and the fact that it passes muster on CNN weeks before an election should scare you more than any of the Ragin’ Cajun’s nonsensical takes.
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