'Right out of 'Mein Kampf'': Michael Cohen unloads on Trump’s 'asinine' grievance politics

30 July 2023

Editor's note: This story originally contained opinionated language inconsistent with an objective news report. That language has since been removed. AlterNet regrets this error.

Indicted ex-President Donald Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen warned on MSNBC on Sunday that Republican presidential candidates' dalliances with what he characterized as neofascism indicate that there is little daylight between themselves and Trump.

The segment began with host Ali Velshi recalling Trump's credo of, "'They're indicting me to — you know I'm protecting you. I'm the only one between you and them,'" which Cohen compared to the writings of Adolf Hitler.

"It's right out of Mein Kampf, which allegedly Donald used to keep on the side of his table. This is not a joke," Cohen said. "And to anybody who thinks for a quick second that, 'Listen, there's no way he's going to win,' that was a pretty packed audience last night in Erie, Pennsylvania. And shame on each and every one of them for going there after you start hearing, even like the stupidity from the DeSantis who's trying to be a Donald Trump 2.0 about slavery and then the Holocaust. I mean, they are all out of control. And if guys like Donald Trump or Donald Trump 2.0 retake the White House, the America — and I'm not trying to be hyperbolic here — the America that we know is going to be more like The Handmaid's Tale than the United States of America. That my daughter should have less rights than my mother is appalling. We are going backwards as a country and it's why — look Ali, in all fairness — why your show and so many others are so important in order to explain, explain to the people who don't want to be explained to what's really going on here."

Next, Velshi alluded to Florida's new Black history education curriculum, which whitewashes the barbarity of American slavery.

"Well, this is the, I had a conversation with the president of the National Education Association Teachers Union the other night who said that in Florida, the teachers are resisting teaching both this nonsense in Florida that Ron DeSantis wants to teach about how people who were enslaved developed some skills," Velshi said. "Breitbart has then posted this morning an article in which it says, 'NEA had MSNBC's Velshi argue that Florida shouldn't teach slaves developed skills' or that, 'Or banned AP course saying that they learned trades main mainstream.' Publications are taking issue with the idea that, that's a ridiculous thing to say. We had [civil rights advocate] Kimberly Crenshaw on the other day. She said, 'My great-grandmother was enslaved and she was a midwife. She would much rather have not been enslaved than learn the trades of being a midwife because if you're free people, you can learn whatever trade you want.' This is BS, Michael."

Cohen agreed and satirized the GOP's descent into darkness by invoking his father's escape from Nazi concentration camps.

"Of course it is. It's not only BS. It is absolutely dangerous," Cohen declared. "And thank goodness, right, for Adolf Hitler in that, because my father's suffering as a child during the Holocaust, right? As a, you know, as a prisoner..."

Velshi noted that "you're not making that up."

Cohen continued, "No, I'm not. My father — my father's from Poland, from a place called Blotnia, and he was, he will be part of the last generation of Holocaust survivors. If it wasn't for Hitler, my father never would've become a head and neck reconstructive surgeon in Toronto. Because, you know, they ended up leaving the country after the war was over, right? I mean, thank goodness for Hitler, right? I mean, is that what they wanna start teaching? I mean, this is, and Superman is real, right? I mean, I saw him fly over the city yesterday."

Cohen opined that "the level of stupidity that's coming from this far right, that's being supported — that's the worst part. All those folks that were there in Erie, Pennsylvania — they're supporting this level of stupidity, whether it's to Donald Trump's PAC, which to me makes no sense, he gets to use at his own discretion, ninety cents of every dollar. You may as well just give it to him and tell him, 'I don't care what you, just forget about the PAC. You wanna fix your plane? You wanna buy a helicopter? Here, here's money.'"

Velshi added, "Because for the moment, it's his legal defense fund."

Cohen thusly concurred, "Right, well, he could use it for whatever he wants. But the whole thing that, the whole conversation, it's asinine. There's no other way to put it."

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