The Democratic National Committee projects digital messages onto the outside of Madison Square Garden during its previous meeting President Donald Trump’s campaign rally Sunday about recent reports that he once praised Adolf Hitler and his generals and that made him unhinged.
“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. General 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 officials have denied Kelly’s stories.
Sunday marks the first time the DNC has projected counterprogramming onto a building with Trump inside, but it is far from the first time Democrats have used this technique. The DNC continued projections at Trump Tower in New York City on the night of the vice presidential debate and at 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 1939 rally in support of Hitler and the Nazi Party at an earlier iteration of Madison Square Garden prior to 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 an even larger number of counter-protesters stood outside.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz also compared Trump’s rally there on Sunday to one in 1939.
“Donald Trump is having a big rally at Madison Square Garden,” Walz said in an address to Nevada voters. “There is a direct parallel to a large gathering that took place at Madison Square Garden in the mid-1930s. And don’t think he doesn’t know for a second exactly what they’re doing there.’
Walz and Vice President Kamala Harris have recently increased their criticism of the former president as they push their latest message to voters in the final stages before the election. In a CNN town hall, Harris agreed that Trump was a fascist and Walz called the former president’s comments “so damn racist.”
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Hillary Clinton said Trump’s choice for his closing message was no coincidence and that he was “essentially reenacting the 1939 Madison Square Garden rally,” following similar comparisons from others, including New York State Sen. Brad York. Hoylman Sigal.
Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt fired back, saying Clinton herself held events there while her husband, former President Bill Clinton, accepted the Democratic nomination there in 1992.
“Her hypocrisy aside, Hillary’s rhetoric about half the country is disgusting,” Leavitt said in a statement.
Sunday’s meeting comes just days after Kelly also told The New York Times that Trump has little appreciation for history, saying, “I think he’s lacking in that.”
Trump also personally dismissed the criticism at a rally later Friday in Michigan, distancing himself and his base from the comparison.
“I think in the 1930s or something there was a guy who turned to the Nazis who had a thing, and she said it was like the 1930s. No, no, this is called Make America Great Again,” Trump told a crowd in Traverse City.
DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison did not go so far as to make the same comparison as Clinton, but told CBS News in a statement that he sees Trump “becoming increasingly unhinged in the final weeks heading into Election Day; so much so that those in the know Trump can best warn voters that he is dangerously unfit to lead.”
To that end, the DNC also projects messages at Madison Square Garden questioning Trump’s competency, including: “Trump = Unhinged” and “Trump = Unwell.”
David Schwartz, a trial attorney in New York City, previously told CBS News that it is illegal to project digital signs for more than 60 seconds in New York City without a permit. However, a spokesperson for the DNC said they are aware of the law and are complying with it by rotating individual messages.
and Shawna Mizelle contributed to this report.
