CNN anchor John Berman and Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., got into a tense exchange Tuesday morning over politically charged terms like “fascist” and “socialist” that have been used to describe the two presidential candidates.
At a recent rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, Vice President Kamala Harris played a mashup of clips in which Trump warned of dangers from “the enemy within.”
“The worst people are the enemies from within… those people are more dangerous; the enemy within; than Russia and China. These people should be put in jail the way they talk about our judges and our justices,” Trump collectively stated in some of the television clips played.
In recent comments on the matter to Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo, Trump spoke about such “enemies,” and quipped that while China and Russia are “dangerous” at times to deal with, “the thing that’s tougher to handle are these lunatics that we have inside like Adam Schiff.”
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Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during a campaign rally at the Williams Arena at Minges Coliseum on the campus of East Carolina University on October 13, 2024, in Greenville, North Carolina. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Schiff, a congressman from Burbank, Calif., is currently the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate against Republican retired MLB star Steve Garvey.
During an interview on “CNN News Central,” Berman asked Waltz whether it was “responsible” for Trump to make such comments.
Waltz claimed that Trump was talking about issues that are “detrimental” to democracy in the United States and undermine public trust in institutions. For example, he claimed that Schiff, a senior House Intelligence Committee member, leaked information from compartmented hearings and lied to the public in open hearings.
Berman then referenced the “lunatic” comment directed at Schiff and suggested that Trump was also talking about dealing with “lunatics” in a hypothetical military deployment.
“John, people were on this network calling Trump Hitler and the next coming of another dictator and two people have tried to kill him. We have the Iranians trying to kill him. A foreign adversary trying to assassinate him and we’re talking about him playing music in a rally,” Waltz said.
Berman acknowledged that while it is essential to talk about heated rhetoric directed at Trump, Waltz himself has suggested that Harris is a “socialist.”
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CNN’s John Berman and Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., sat down on “CNN News Central” to discuss former President Donald Trump’s “enemy from within” comments. (CNN/Screenshot)
“So, these phrases do get tossed around,” Berman added.
Waltz said that socialism is a “longstanding political ideology” and very different from claiming that Trump would be “the world’s most god-awful dictator” and Hitler. Waltz also contended that such language is radicalizing people to take action.
He also noted that some members of Congress have referred to themselves as “democratic socialists” and insisted that Berman was not making a “fair comparison.”
“You don’t?” Berman asked. “You talk about Marxism. You talk about socialism. And do you think Kamala Harris is a Marxist or a socialist?”
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Waltz said that he believes Marxism is “underpinning” some of Harris’ policies, such as price controls.
Berman then tried to draw a comparison between Waltz’s comments about Harris and retired Gen. Mark Milley’s remarks about Trump.
Milley reportedly said, “No one has ever been as dangerous to this country as Donald Trump… Now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is the most dangerous person to this country,” according to a new book by journalist Bob Woodward.
“He’s saying that Donald Trump espouses fascist policies,” Berman said. “It’s a political ideology. Fascism is a political ideology.”