Fox News has been performatively outraged at Vice President Kamala Harris calling former President Donald Trump “fascist” following audio being released of General John Kelly — Trump’s former Chief of Staff — precisely explaining why he believes Trump is a fascist.

It’s been a theme on almost all Fox News shows since Harris held a press conference, a clip of which was aired in the lead-in to an Outnumbered segment hosted by former Trump Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.

Viewers were shown a clip of Harris saying, “And it is clear from John Kelly’s words that Donald Trump is someone who, I quote, certainly falls into the general definition of fascist who vowed to be a dictator on day one and vowed to use the military as his personal militia to carry out his personal and political vendettas.”

What were John Kelly’s words? The former DHS Secretary and decorated Marine General told the New York Times Michael Schmidt:

Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy. So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America.

But McEnany instead blamed “the liberal media” for going all in, showing a raft of headlines reporting on what Kelly said. “You see it there. Check out this wave of recent headlines describing Trump as, quote, fascist, authoritarian, even Hitler loving,” she said. “Wow. And that’s just a few of them.”

Emily Compagna took a turn insulting the vice president, saying “I truly don’t think Kamala Harris could define fascism.” She then ironically offered, “I don’t think she could define the difference between disinformation or misinformation.” Speaking of misinformation…

The merits of labeling one’s political rivals a “fascist” is certainly a worthy topic for cable news programming. And the criticism of Harris using this language is a fair subject to debate. The pretense that Kamala Harris and democrats alone are solely engaged in this allegedly dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric on display in the segment above is flatly embarrassing to all involved.

Why? Because long before Vice President Harris proclaimed her belief that Trump was engaging in some level of fascism? Trump was making the same exact claim about Harris.  We know this because CNN NewsNight reminded viewers of Trump’s overheated rhetoric used against his opponents in a montage aired over a month ago:

In this segment above, CNN host Abby Phillip aired snippets of former President Trump going full anti-fascist in condemning his rivals, but not after she aired a clip of Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance chiding Democrats.

“Look, we can disagree with one another,” Vance said in September. “We can debate one another. But we cannot tell the American people that one candidate is a fascist and if he’s elected, it is gonna be the end of American democracy.”

Phillip noted one issue with Vance’s remarks. “Except here is Vance’s actual running mate saying exactly that,” she said before playing snippets of Trump at various rallies:

It’s a choice between communism and freedom.

…

This is communist, this is Marxist, this is fascist.

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There’s a radical left, Marxist, communist, fascist.

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She’s a Marxist. She’s a fascist.

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Comrade Kamala Harris.

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If comrade Kamala Harris gets four more years, you will be living [in] a full-blown banana republic ruled by an anarchy and a tyranny… They’re scum. They’re scum and they want to take down our country. They are absolute garbage.

On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump infamously told rally-goers in Washington, D.C. that if Congress certified Biden’s election victory that day, America as they knew would be over. While the former president did say to march to the Capitol “peacefully,” he also said, “And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” while telling the crowd, “You have to show strength.”

Watch the clips above via Fox News and CNN, respectively.

The post Fox News Attacks Kamala Harris for Calling Trump Fascist — Ignoring the Fact that Trump Has Called Her a Fascist Many Times first appeared on Mediaite.

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