The Democratic National Committee projects digital messages on the exterior of Madison Square Garden during the former president’s Donald Trump’s campaign rally Sunday regarding recent reports that he once praised Adolf Hitler and his generals and this made him unbalanced.
“Trump praised Hitler,” says one of the DNC’s five planned projections, referring to Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, the four-star Marine Corps. Gen. John Kelly told The Atlantic this week that Trump had admirable things to say about the German dictator.
Trump says he “never said it,” and campaign aides have denied Kelly’s accounts.
Sunday marked the first time the DNC has projected counterprogramming on a building while Trump is inside, but it’s far from the first time Democrats have deployed the technique. The DNC put projections on the Trump Tower in New York on the night of the vice-presidential debate and on the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention in August.
Democratic National Committee
This time, the stunt comes as some Democrats are drawing comparisons to a rally in support of Hitler and the Nazi Party in 1939, in a previous reiteration at Madison Square Garden before World War II. Billed as a “pro-American rally,” the February 1939 event was organized by the German American Bund, a pro-Hitler organization, attended by more than 20,000 people and saw an even greater number of counter- demonstrators outside.
On Sunday, Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz also compared Trump’s rally to one in 1939.
“Donald Trump had this big rally at Madison Square Garden,” Walz said, addressing Nevada voters. “There’s a direct parallel to a big gathering that took place in the mid-1930s at Madison Square Garden. And don’t think he doesn’t know for a second exactly what they’re doing there.”
Waltz and Vice President Kamala Harris have recently increased their criticism of the former president as they deliver their final message to voters in the home stretch before the election. In a CNN town hall, Harris acknowledged that Trump was a fascist and Walz called the former president’s comments “so racist.”
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Hillary Clinton said that Trump’s choice of location for his closing message was not a coincidence and that he was “actually re-enacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939,” at the following similar comparisons made by others, notably New York State Senator Brad. Hoylman-Sigal.
The Trump campaign’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, fired back by claiming that Clinton herself held events there while her husband, former President Bill Clinton, accepted the Democratic nomination there in 1992.
“Leaving aside her hypocrisy, Hillary’s rhetoric about half the country is disgusting,” Leavitt said in a statement.
Sunday’s rally comes just days after Kelly also told the New York Times that Trump had little appreciation for history, saying, “I think he’s missing that.”
Trump also personally pushed back against criticism at a Friday rally in Michigan, distancing himself and his base from the comparison.
“I guess in the 1930s or something, a guy who was Nazi-inclined had something, and she said it was just like the 1930s. No, no, it’s called Make America Great Again,” Trump told a crowd in Traverse City.
DNC Chair Jaime Harrison stopped short of making the same comparison as Clinton, but told CBS News in a statement that he viewed Trump as having “become increasingly unhinged over the last few years.” weeks leading up to election day; Trump better warn voters that he is dangerously unfit to lead.”
To that end, the DNC is also projecting messages onto Madison Square Garden questioning Trump’s competence, including “Trump = Unhinged” and “Trump = Unfit.”
David Schwartz, a New York lawyer, previously told CBS News that it is illegal to project digital signs in New York for more than 60 seconds without a permit. A DNC spokesperson, however, said it was aware of the law and was following it by alternating individual messages.
and Shawna Mizelle contributed to this report.
