Vice President Kamala Harris used a baseless hit piece published in the Atlantic to attack former President Donald Trump for allegedly invoking Adolf Hitler.
The story, written by Trump-hating fabulist Jeffrey Goldberg for The Atlantic (owned by Laurene Powell Jobs), based its claims on two anonymous sources — who appear to be rehashing a claim from a 2022 book by the New Yorker‘s Susan B. Glasser and the New York Times‘ Peter Baker
Critics argue it was written to change the media cycle in favor of Harris, who suffered negative headlines after Trump’s successful weekend of campaigning.
Despite the dubious nature of the story, Harris tried to harness the baseless attack to drive her campaign’s closing message, namely that Trump is “unhinged,” “unstable,” and therefore unfit to be president.
“It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of 1000s of Americans,” Harris claimed from her residence in Washington. “All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is.”
The Atlantic story is a psy-op. Its immediate purpose was to get the corporate press and the Harris campaign to repeat the lie at the heart of the story, to treat it as fact. Mission accomplished. But its ultimate purpose is to justify the rejection of a Trump electoral victory. https://t.co/BtCysYWJ16
— John Daniel Davidson (@johnddavidson) October 23, 2024
“Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable, and in a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions,” she continued.
“The bottom line is this: we know what Donald Trump wants,” Harris added. “He wants unchecked power. The question in 13 days will be, what do the American people want?”
The Atlantic story has also been condemned for printing falsehoods about Mayra Guillen, the sister of deceased U.S. Army soldier Vanessa Guillen, who said the hit piece falsely claimed that Trump offered to help pay for Guillen’s funeral but allegedly “became angry” over the cost and blurted out an expletive.
Wow.
I don’t appreciate how you are exploiting my sister’s death for politics- hurtful & disrespectful to the important changes she made for service members. President Donald Trump did nothing but show respect to my family & Vanessa. In fact, I voted for President Trump today. https://t.co/o8cDrKOKBV— Mayra Guillen (@mguilen_) October 22, 2024
More on the hit piece here.