On Bill Maher’s recent show featuring Megyn Kelly, the two broke into a tense discussion regarding comparisons of former President Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler. The conversation had shifted quickly from the Russia-Ukraine War to a debate on whether it’s Republicans or Democrats who are on the “wrong side” of history with recent fascism accusations.
Maher noted the global impact of the Russia-Ukraine war, and then drew World War II parallels with dictator alliances like Hitler and Japan. “In the news this week, I mean, we thought when the Ukraine War started, Putin would be isolated. He‘s not isolated. He had the BRICS nations—that‘s Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and now four or five other countries—it‘s about half the world’s population, around 35 percent of the GDP,” Maher said.
“These are the dictator countries. There’s a very World War II feeling here, when the dictator countries are getting together. I mean in World War II, what did Hitler and the Japanese have in common? Nothing! Except they saw the world one way—fascism,” he said.
“Somehow the world seems to be dividing between the ‘good guy’ countries—the democratic countries—and these autocracies. And, if your guy gets in, we’re gonna be on the wrong side of this one,” Maher added.
Kelly was quick to defend Trump, noting that his presidency avoided wars, unlike Biden’s, which, she argued, revealed great weakness after the Afghanistan withdrawal.
“Okay, if my guy gets in I think we‘ll go back to the time that we had when he was president, which was the only time we didn’t start a war and get involved in a war,” Kelly said.
“Putin did not invade Ukraine until Biden took over. We had the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which projected weakness through the world. People understood that we were enfeebled, and that is what was provocative. Weakness is provocative,” she said.
“Trump destabilized these people. They didn‘t know what to expect of him. Next thing you know, he’s bombing Soleimani. Trump did strategic strikes that had people on their heels, they didn’t know what he might do to them,” Kelly added.
“Yeah, it‘s what he might do to us that I’m a little more worried about,” Maher said.
“We’ve had four years of Trump. Trump did not go after his political enemies with the Department of Justice, that was Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” Kelly said.
“Well, we had Hitler in the ’30s and things were okay, and then we had Hitler in the ’40s and they got way worse. Just because we had him…” Maher began.
“He hid his Hitlerism the first four years and is going to come out full force in the second term?” Kelly shot back.
“Well he tried to do things like that, he tried to do dictatorial, fascist things and he was stopped,” Maher said.
Biden “and Kamala Harris unleashed this Department of Justice against their political enemy Donald Trump, their number one chief rival for the presidency,” Kelly said, prompting the audience to laugh.
“Is it funny? ‘Cause they did it. You wanna talk fascism, that’s fascist,” Kelly added.
