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PODCAST

Trump’s Unhinged Fox News Rants on “the Enemy” Hint at Darker Story

As a former general labels Trump a “fascist” and he seethes in response, a historian explains how the U.S. right’s long overlap with fascist movements is culminating in the MAGA moment.

Donald Trump holds up a microphone and speaks into it
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump in Oaks, Pennsylvania, on October 14

The word fascist has fully penetrated the presidential race. We just learned that a top general under President Donald Trump described Trump as “fascist to the core.” Trump has been threatening to unleash the military on the enemy within, which numerous observers describe as fascist politics. And at a Fox News event on Wednesday, Trump uncorked an unhinged, rambling response to all this, insisting that the real fascists are Democrats. We talked to David Austin Walsh, a historian and author of Taking America Back, who explains how the American right has overlapped with fascist movements throughout our historyand what that says about our MAGA moment. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.