Fox News host Will Cain confronted Democratic strategist James Carville on Tuesday over comparing President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. The exchange followed Carville’s April 22 video where he echoed a New York Times op-ed by Larry David that mocked Bill Maher’s dinner with Trump by invoking the Nazi dictator. Cain said the rhetoric is damaging for Democrats and distracts from their message.
“I do want to press you on one thing. And I appreciate that you have criticized the left wing of your party, James. I truly do,” Cain said on “The Will Cain Show.” “But I have to tell you, James: I also think it’s a loser to do something that you have done. And that is to constantly equate President Trump to Hitler.”
Cain urged Carville to shift to a positive message. “You’ve got to stop hyperventilating over the dystopian future of America,” he said. “Equating Trump to authoritarian regimes just turns voters off,” Cain added. Carville, however, didn’t back down.
Carville doubled down and cited various accusations. “Trump, according to his wife in a deposition, kept a copy of ‘Mein Kampf’ on his night table,” he said. “He said he admired Hitler’s generals. He sides with authoritarian countries. Do you have to wait until he becomes Hitler?”
He also brought up Elon Musk. “Elon Musk … said that Hitler was not responsible for the Holocaust, it was actually the postal employees that did it,” Carville claimed. Musk had reposted and later deleted a post in March suggesting government employees, not dictators, committed mass atrocities, according to Haaretz.
Cain challenged the claims as distortions. “I think the vast majority of that is hyperventilating, it is half-truths reported from media,” Cain said. He argued the narrative lacks nuance and context.
Carville also pointed to Trump’s dinner with Ye and white nationalist Nick Fuentes in 2022. “There’s a lot of evidence to say that Trump, shall we say, has a favorable view of some of these things,” Carville said. “And I will continue to bring it up.”
Cain acknowledged the dinner happened but emphasized Trump’s denial. “The half-truth I would say, James, is yes, he did have dinner with Nick Fuentes,” Cain said. “He said he did not know who he was or what he stood for.”
Others have weighed in on the fascism debate as well. Hoover Institution fellow Victor Davis Hanson recently argued that Trump’s governance was not fascist. He claimed President Biden has demonstrated more authoritarian tendencies in office.