Dems Say Trump Rally at Madison Square Garden a ’Direct Parallel’ to 1939 Pro-Nazi Rally
Prior to former President Donald Trump’s first-ever campaign event at the famed Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday, top Democrats — including vice presidential nominee Tim Walz — claimed without evidence that the event was akin to a pro-Nazi rally that was once held there in 1939.
“Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden,” Walz stated at an event in Henderson, Nevada on Sunday. “There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden.”
“And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there,” Walz added.
The comments echoed those made by Hillary Clinton last Friday on MSNBC, when she claimed, “One other thing that you’ll see next week … is Trump actually reenacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939. President Franklin Roosevelt was appalled that neo-Nazis, fascists in America were lining up to essentially pledge their support for the kind of government that they were seeing in Germany. So I don’t think we can ignore it.”
Notably, both comments were preceded by an accusation made by Democratic strategist James Carville on October 13, when he asserted, “Trump has announced that he will be giving a speech at Madison Square Garden on October the 27th. Please google ‘Madison Square Garden February the 10th, 1939’ and see what happened there. They are telling you exactly what they’re going to do. They are telling you, ‘We are going to institute a fascist regime.’”
Mainstream media outlets such as The Washington Post have since picked up on the theme as well.
Of note, Madison Square Garden, which is known as “The World’s Most Famous Arena” and is home to the New York Knicks and the New York Rangers, hosts approximately 320 events per year, including sporting events, music concerts, ice shows, beauty pageants, and other forms of entertainment. Walz, Clinton, and Carville have yet to accuse any sports teams or musicians who have played there of being Nazi sympathizers.
The comments mirror numerous accusations made against the Republican presidential nominee over the last month. Last week, John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, remarked that the former president fits “into the general definition of fascist,” claiming that Trump once expressed admiration for Hitler’s generals (the claim has not been substantiated and is refuted by multiple sources).
Following Kelly’s allegation, Vice President Kamala Harris directly called Trump a “fascist” on three separate occasions during last week’s CNN town hall event.
“Desperate people say desperate things,” Family Research Council Senior Fellow Joseph Backholm told The Washington Stand. “The Left is starting to behave desperately as signs continue to point to them losing the election. We have no right to criticize Trump for petty and thoughtless insults if we are going to turn around and suggest he is morally no different than those who committed one of the worst genocides in human history.”
“It’s a silly smear, especially because he has already been president, so we have a very good idea of how he’ll behave as president, but days before an election is silly season,” he added.
Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.