Ahead of Trump’s North Carolina rally and in response to new reporting on Michael Whatley refusing to condemn a North Carolina GOP candidate with ties to a neo-Nazi organization, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement: 

“Refusing to condemn a white supremacist with neo-Nazi ties should be disqualifying, but instead Donald Trump has decided to promote Michael Whatley to take over the RNC. The Republican Party has become so extreme under Donald Trump that he doesn’t bat an eyelash when one of his henchmen remains silent on Nazism, but that’s par for the course for Trump, who praises dictators on the campaign trail, dines with notorious white supremacists and antisemites, and promises to rule as a dictator on day one. As Trump campaigns in Whatley’s home state of North Carolina, he’s only cementing for voters that he’s divisive, extreme, and out-of-touch.”

Donald Trump’s pick for RNC chair Michael Whatley has refused to condemn a state House GOP candidate with ties to a neo-Nazi organization. 

Raleigh News & Observer: “NC GOP chair stays quiet about candidate’s Nazi ties after failed effort at removal from ballot”

“This year, however, the state GOP, led by Chair Michael Whatley, has remained silent on a candidate with ties to a neo-Nazi organization.

“Joseph Gibson III, a Rockingham County podcaster with past felony convictions, is running for a state House seat. … After Gibson was approved to be on the ballot, Whatley — who is now running to be chair of the Republican National Committee with former President Donald Trump’s support — did not publicly condemn his candidacy. 

“Whatley and the state GOP have not responded to requests for comment after The News & Observer attempted to reach them over three days by phone, email and text message.

“The Anti-Defamation League found that Gibson had ties to the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement and referred to him as a ‘white supremacist and anti-government extremist.’

“The ADL’s report said Gibson participated in livestream events hosted by the NSM and in one instance messaged the channel saying ‘88,’ a dog whistle used by white supremacists to mean ‘Heil Hitler.’”

Whatley is a MAGA extremist who threatened our democracy by parroting Trump’s 2020 election lies – and now he’s set to take over the RNC. 

New York Magazine: “Trump Taps Election Deniers Lara Trump, Michael Whatley to Lead RNC”

CNN: “Likely frontrunner for RNC chair parroted Trump’s 2020 election lies”

“Michael Whatley, the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, shared false claims that Republican observers were prevented from accessing polling locations and repeatedly said Democratic cities in swing states were engaged in ‘massive fraud.’”

Associated Press: “Donald Trump wants a leadership change at the Republican National Committee in an attempt to install a new slate of loyalists — including his daughter-in-law — atop the GOP’s political machine even before the former president formally secures the party’s next presidential nomination.”

CBS News: “A Trump-backed trio of leaders is expected to take the helm at the Republican National Committee, effectively strengthening former President Donald Trump’s iron grip on the party going into the general election. Trump announced last week a new effort to unite the RNC and his campaign. He’s installing Lara Trump, his daughter-in-law, and Chris LaCivita, a senior campaign adviser, in top leadership positions in the party as part of an effort to merge his reelection campaign and RNC into a ‘seamless operation,’ according to a high-ranking Republican source with knowledge of the decision.”

Politico: “Several senior Republican officials are concerned that Donald Trump’s expected takeover of the RNC will ultimately pave the way for the committee to once again cover his legal bills.”

Trump has frequently praised dictators and parroted extreme rhetoric uttered by the likes of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

Washington Post: “Trump calls political enemies ‘vermin,’ echoing dictators Hitler, Mussolini”

The Hill: “Trump, in a Veterans Day speech in New Hampshire, pledged to ‘root out … the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country,’ the latest in a growing line of increasingly incendiary comments about his political opponents heading into the 2024 election.”

“The former president warned the audience of supporters that ‘the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. Our threat is from within. Because if you have a capable, competent, smart, tough leader, Russia, China, North Korea, they’re not going to want to play with us.’”

Axios: “Why it matters: Some historians have compared Trump’s dehumanizing language — including his claim that undocumented immigrants are ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ — to the rhetoric of fascist dictators like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.”

Trump launched his 2024 presidential campaign while dining with known white supremacists and antisemites. 

Axios: “Former President Trump dined and conversed with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, at his Mar-a-Lago resort on Tuesday night, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Why it matters: Trump’s direct engagement with a man labeled a ‘white supremacist’ by the Justice Department, one week after declaring his 2024 candidacy, is likely to draw renewed outrage over the former president’s embrace of extremists. Fuentes, who frequently promotes racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, had been spotted with Ye at Mar-a-Lago, but reports erroneously suggested he did not have dinner with the former president.” 

When the country looked to Trump for guidance and leadership after neo-Nazis and white supremacists marched on Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump emboldened them by claiming there was hate “on both sides.” 

CNN: “Nazi, alt-right and white supremacist groups, however, were emboldened by the condemnation, which they saw as a defense, or even as a tacit approval. ‘He didn’t attack us,’ the Daily Stormer, a Nazi white supremacist website, said of the President’s comments. ‘[He] implied that there was hate…on both sides. So he implied the antifa are haters. There was virtually no counter-signaling of us all.’”

New York Times: “Abandoning his precisely chosen and carefully delivered condemnations of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis from a day earlier, the president furiously stuck by his initial reaction to the unrest in Charlottesville. He drew the very moral equivalency for which a bipartisan chorus, and his own advisers, had already criticized him. ‘I think there is blame on both sides,’ the president said in a combative exchange with reporters at Trump Tower in Manhattan. ‘You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. I’ll say it right now.’”

Trump has a long and shameful history of uplifting dangerous Jewish stereotypes, making offensive comments, and praising Hitler.

MarketWatch: “President Trump blasted by Jewish group for his ‘vile and bigoted remarks’”

Times of Israel: “Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Thursday invoked a series of stereotypes about Jews that are often deemed offensive and even anti-Semitic — in an address to Jewish Republicans [at the Republican Jewish Coalition]. … He continued, evoking a stereotype about Jews, money and control, ‘And I know why you’re not going to support me. You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money. Isn’t it crazy?’” 

BuzzFeed: “Donald Trump repeatedly invoked stereotypes about Jews and money during a speech to a Republican Jewish Coalition meeting on Thursday. … At several points during his speech, Trump said that the audience must be full of negotiators and insisted that he wouldn’t take their money. ‘I’m a negotiator, like you folks,’ Trump said. ‘Is there anyone in this room who doesn’t negotiate deals?’ Trump said later. ‘Probably more than any room I’ve ever spoken.’”

NBC News: “Trump Once Complained That His Generals Weren’t Like Hitler’s, Book Says”

The Guardian: “On a visit to Europe to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the first world war, Donald Trump insisted to his then chief of staff, John Kelly: ‘Well, Hitler did a lot of good things.’ The remark from the former US president on the 2018 trip, which reportedly ‘stunned’ Kelly, a retired US Marine Corps general, is reported in a new book by Michael Bender of the Wall Street Journal. Frankly, We Did Win This Election has been widely trailed ahead of publication next week. The Guardian obtained a copy. Bender reports that Trump made the remark during an impromptu history lesson in which Kelly ‘reminded the president which countries were on which side during the conflict’ and ‘connected the dots from the first world war to the second world war and all of Hitler’s atrocities.’”