MRC's Notable Quotables: Blaming GOP for Donald Trump, aka 'Adolf Hitler'

Posted below: the March 21 edition of Notable Quotables, MRC’s bi-weekly compilation of the latest outrageous quotes in the liberal media. This issue: Journalists at CNN and the New York Times blame the Republican Party for the rise of Donald Trump, a menace that George Stephanopoulos and others compare to an American Adolf Hitler. 

Meanwhile, ABC and NBC race to proclaim Barack Obama’s new Supreme Court nominee a “moderate,” Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd declares Judge Merrick Garland a “perfect pick,” and Chris Matthews re-lives the “thrill” Barack Obama sent shooting up his leg. The complete issue, with 24 quotes is posted below.

Media Liken Donald Trump to an American Hitler...

“The number of prominent people comparing you to Adolf Hitler is actually growing by the day....I can’t remember that kind of comparison being used against any other presidential candidate. Does it suggest to you that you should tone down your rhetoric and your tactics?”
— George Stephanopoulos to Trump on ABC’s Good Morning America, March 8.

“The current president of Mexico, two former presidents of Mexico have compared him to Hitler. Vicente Fox, former president, specifically said, quote, ‘He reminds me of Hitler.’ It’s direct. It’s not an allusion. It’s a direct thing: ‘He reminds me of Hitler.’ Do they have a point?”
— Host Erin Burnett to Florida GOP Governor Rick Scott on CNN’s OutFront, March 10.

Host Chuck Todd: “David, the visual, the hands go up, Trump asks for a pledge. I was flabbergasted.”
New York Times columnist David Brooks: “If we’re going to get Trump, we might as well get the Nuremberg rallies to go with it.”
— NBC’s Meet the Press, March 6.

“I’m worried. When he [Trump] institutes internment camps and suspends habeas, we’ll all look back and feel pretty bad.”
— CNN commentator and Daily Beast contributor Sally Kohn during CNN’s live coverage of the March 5 primaries.

...And Blame the Republican Party for His Rise

“A main cause of the rise of extremism in the world of Islam has been the cowardice of Muslim moderates who for decades chose not to condemn bad ideas and ugly rhetoric....It is now clear that a similar dynamic has been at play in the world of conservatism....Republicans have fed the country ideas about decline, betrayal, and treason. They have encouraged the forces of anti-intellectualism, obstructionism, and populism. They have flirted with bigotry and racism. Trump merely chose to unashamedly embrace all of it — saying plainly what they were hinting at for years. In doing so, he hit the jackpot.”
— Host Fareed Zakaria on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, March 6.

“The GOP establishment may be in a state of meltdown, but this process of exploiting the darkest American undercurrents began with Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy and, more lately, has included the birther movement and the Obama Derangement Syndrome....The Republican Party, having spent years courting the basest impulses in American political culture, now sees the writing on the wall. It reads ‘Donald Trump,’ in very big letters.”
— Editor David Remnick writing in the March 14 issue of The New Yorker.

“To Democrats, and some Republicans, Mr. Ryan and the Republican leadership have a quandary of their own making. Republican lawmakers and candidates often averted their gaze when questions were raised about President Obama’s birth certificate and religion. They tolerated breaches of decorum, such as Representative Joe Wilson’s cry of ‘You lie’ during a presidential address, and even made light of the man who brought many of those alleged conspiracies to the fore: Mr. Trump.”
— New York Times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer in a March 3 “Congressional Memo.”

“I mean, look, the Republican Party for years has been sort of stroking — stoking this anger amongst the base, and a lot of it is racial; some of it is economic, some of it is, you know, political, as well. But I mean, this anger that they have courted and they’ve really sought out — and you’ve seen it not just in this election, but in elections past....Donald Trump is their party’s frontrunner, and the fact that none of the establishment really likes that, or really wants to see it, is really something of their own making.”
— Time’s Jay Newton-Small on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton, March 13.

Trump’s “Hate” = Everything You Hear on Talk Radio

“Donald Trump is amplifying everything that we’ve heard on talk radio for the last eight years, Matt [Dowd], you know that. There’s not one AM channel when I’m home in the South, or riding up in the Northeast, they’ve been saying this kinda dog whistle, you know, ‘everybody is the problem,’ and ‘people have not taken responsibility.’ I denounce Donald Trump for not denouncing the kind of vitriol, the kind of violence that he has perpetrated with his angry rhetoric. And he knows exactly what he’s doing. This is not the Donald Trump who denounced David Duke in 1991. This is a guy who’s now soaking up this hate, and he’s spilling it back out.”
— ABC News contributor and Democratic strategist Donna Brazile on This Week, March 13.

Trust Me: I’m No Fan of Out-of-Touch Right-Winger Rubio

“People often assume I’m a Rubio fan because of the Time cover, but I’ve never shared his right-wing domestic policies or neo-conservative foreign policies; I’ve written about how his party has lost touch with reality in the Obama era, and I think he reflects his party’s drift.”
— Michael Grunwald, who wrote Time’s 2013 “The Republican Savior” cover story, in a March 16 Politico post.

Barack Obama’s “Moderate” Supreme Court Pick

“The President has nominated federal Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland, regarded as a moderate, to replace the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia....”
— NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt, March 16.

“On the bench he’s been a moderate, voting to uphold environmental laws but often tough on criminals....”
— NBC News Justice correspondent Pete Williams, moments later on the same broadcast.

“As a judge, Garland is known as a moderate on the appeals court, though he would tip the balance of the Supreme Court by replacing staunch conservative Antonin Scalia.”
— ABC’s Terry Moran on World News Tonight, March 16.

vs.

“We don’t yet know exactly how Mr. Garland would vote if he joined the court. But scholars believe that he will be substantially more liberal than Justice Scalia was. According to a ranking of Supreme Court and appeals court judges, Mr. Garland is expected to be ideologically similar to Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s previous picks for the court.”
— Alicia Parlapiano and Margot Sanger-Katz writing at the New York Times’s “Upshot” blog, March 16.    

Marveling at the Perfection of Obama’s Pick

“He [Judge Merrick Garland] is the perfect pick if they ever have to have one with a Republican Senate....He is putting real pressure on the Republicans to sit here and stick by this pledge that they’re somehow not going to even have a hearing....I think he made the perfect pick.”
— NBC’s Chuck Todd during live coverage of President Obama’s announcement of Garland as his choice for the Supreme Court, March 16.

Not Approving Garland = More Evidence of GOP’s Racism

Host Chris Matthews: “Do you think people look at this as another one of those boots in the face to the President on the racial front? First of all, he’s a birther, he’s not legitimate. Now, we’re not going to give him a chance to name a Supreme Court nominee.”
American Urban Radio Networks correspondent April Ryan: “Of course, yeah. I call it ‘blacklash.’”
— Exchange on MSNBC’s Hardball, March 16.

Nancy Tried to “Protect” Reagan from Wacky “Conservative Positions”

“Everybody knows that she pushed him into a detente with Gorbachev at the Soviet Union, but she was also trying to get him to stop talking as much as he was on the social issues — the more conservative positions he was taking, for example, on abortion and gun control....She was protecting him. She was protecting his image and she was protecting the presidency.”
— 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl reminiscing about Nancy Reagan on the CBS Evening News, March 7.

Nobody Sends a Thrill up Chris’s Leg Like Obama

“I think Obama was so exciting. I think, you know, I was the ‘thrill up the leg’ and all that. I admit it — I was overwhelmed by his speeches, ’cause I’d go to all these rooms with 200 people in it and I’d never heard anybody speak like Obama. His presidency obviously couldn’t live up to that level. It couldn’t. It was so stellar, the excitement in those crowds. First African American, young guy, incredibly educated and who could give a speech like nobody’s been able to do since — well, certainly since, on the Democratic side, since Kennedy.”
— MSNBC’s Chris Matthews during his network’s live coverage following CNN’s March 10 GOP debate.

Praising the Ethically Perfect Obama Administration

“This has been an administration that has not been marred by ethical scandals, or you know, any kind of cloud over the President, personally and his judgment and decisions, broadly speaking. In other words, he’s going to be judged as someone with integrity, more or less, by history.”
— Politico editor Susan Glasser during an appearance on C-SPAN’s Q&A, March 13.

Thank Goodness for Bob Schieffer’s “Insight”

Ex-Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer: “Scott, what this is coming down to is, basically, a couple of very flawed candidates....Who knows what that means, or where this is going? I certainly don’t.”
Anchor Scott Pelley: “Bob Schieffer, thank you for the insight.”
— Talking about the presidential campaign on the March 14 CBS Evening News.

Because Ted Cruz Is Planning a Transgender Holocaust?

“But what would make her [Caitlyn Jenner] be a [Ted] Cruz fan? He’s against everything that transgenders as a group stands for?...Transgenders for Cruz is like Jews for Hitler.”
— Co-host Joy Behar on ABC’s The View, March 15.

Hoping Cheney Makes Three?

“Something spooky is going on here at Real Time because, two weeks ago, I mentioned Antonin Scalia, and he died later on that night. And last week I mentioned Nancy Reagan, and she died the next day. So this is a reminder, life is short, we all have to go sometime — and a quick story about Dick Cheney. [Laughter and applause] No, no, no, okay, all right, I know. I don’t wish Dick Cheney dead, okay? I can’t control that anyway.”
— HBO host Bill Maher on Real Time, March 11.

Hailing Bernie the Socialist: He “Awoke Something In Me”

“I think that Bernie Sanders had a particularly great night tonight. He was charming, he was direct, he felt fresh in his answers. He was very honest with his answers, and I just felt a lot of heart from him....He awoke something in me and it was his ideas, and his decency, and it’s his record, frankly. I mean, this guy is exactly who he’s always been. He’s always been fighting for the little guy, and just today, that just happens to be the very person we need....”
— Actor Mark Ruffalo during MSNBC’s live coverage following CNN’s Democratic presidential debate on March 6.

She’ll “Wash Everybody’s Car” to Get Hillary Elected

Host Stephen Colbert: “Well, how about politics? Are you supporting Hillary Clinton?”
Actress Sally Field: “You betcha I am. I have been for a very, very long time. I mean, I’ll go door to door. I’ll wash everybody’s car who isn’t voting for her. I don’t care what it takes.”
— Exchange on CBS’s Late Show, March 9.