Appearing on MSNBC Wednesday afternoon, Michael Cohen wasn’t surprised by Donald Trump’s escalating racist rhetoric. But Cohen believes Trump’s claim that he hasn’t actually read Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”
But only because “Donald does not read.”
Trump has been increasingly brazen in the racist and antisemitic rhetoric he deploys in public statements, but his recent declaration that immigrants “are destroying the blood of our country” has caused particular alarm because it is nearly identical to statements made by Hitler during his rise to power and by fascist admirers of the Nazi dictator ever since.
Trump has brushed off the (accurate) comparisons to Hiter by claiming (falsely) that Hiter meant it “in a much different way.” And he also denies that he has ever read Hitler’s book.
“There is no depth to which Donald will sink in order to continue to stir up his base,” Cohen declared while appearing on MSNBS’s “The Beat. But, he said, “of course, Donald has not read Mein Kampf. Donald doesn’t read. I mean, it’s not that he didn’t want to read it. It’s just that unless it’s in CliffsNotes, or unless somebody read it to him, Donald does not read.”
But Cohen doesn’t think this lets Trump off the hook. “You’ve got guys like Steve Miller, who are writing these speeches for him and discussing it with him. He knows exactly what he’s saying.”
Stephen Miller, of course, is a far-right political advisor to Trump with noted white nationalist ties and was on the forefront of misinformation and conspiracy theories regarding the 2020 election.
Cohen also recounted a moment from his 2020 book “Disloyal: A Memoir,” when Trump stopped an employee of the Trump organization who was German and said: “I bet your family chased Michael’s family through the Red Forest.” Cohen looked at Trump and asked if he knew that his father was a Holocaust survivor.
“He is playing to the lowest denominator of Americans that exist in this country, the racist, antisemitic animals that exist in that MAGA world. That’s who he’s playing to,” Cohen said. “And he will only go lower each and every time that he says something and he generates more and more conversation and he becomes front page news. He will then steep and go much lower to the point that even I can’t tell you how low he will go.”
