section_path: Comparisons/Connections to self-identified fascists
section_name: Connections to self-identified fascists
paragraph_text: Connections to self-identified fascists
  
  In the 2016 United States presidential election, Trump was supported by multiple self-described Nazi or fascist groups, including the National Socialist Movement and Ku Klux Klan. These groups engaged in voter intimidation by monitoring polling locations in 2016, claiming to have done so both "informally" and "through the Trump campaign". In 2016, Trump was endorsed by self-identified Nazis such as David Duke, alt-right activist Richard Spencer and Nazi activist Andrew Anglin. Trump disavowed Duke in August 2015, refused to disavow him in a January 2016 interview, and wrote a tweet disavowing the former KKK leader shortly afterwards. Trump has shared social media content linked to neo-Nazi websites, refused to condemn antisemitic attacks on Jewish journalists, and, after winning the election, appointed Steve Bannon, an admirer of Mussolini, as his chief of staff. During the Charlottesville protests in Virginia, Trump stated that there were good people on both sides. Duke endorsed Trump once again during the 2020 presidential election and criticized him in 2024. In September 2024, CNN reported that Mark Robinson, whom Trump endorsed in the 2024 North Carolina gubernatorial election, had previously identified himself as a "Black Nazi". Trump's Inaugural Address was written by alt-right activists Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon.
  
  Stormfront founder Don Black supported Trump for, he said, fighting against white demoralization and building a long-term movement that would outlast him. Trump was described by alt-right activist and millionaire donor William Regnery II as someone who helped white nationalism go "from being conversation you could hold in a bathroom, to the front parlor". Rocky Suhayda, chairman of a split from the American Nazi Party, said that Trump provided a "real opportunity" for his cause. White Nationalist Jared Taylor supported Trump for "talking about policies that would slow the dispossession of whites" and said that, "all of his policies, at least those pertaining to immigration, align very nicely with the sorts of things we've been saying for many year." Anglin, who founded The Daily Stormer, had multiple pro-Trump articles published on his website and said that, "virtually every Alt-Right Nazi I know is volunteering for the Trump campaign." In November 2016, Spencer shouted "Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!" during a speech at a National Policy Institute convention. By November 2017, and throughout 2018, many alt-right activists expressed disappointment at Trump after he started supporting Muslims in Saudi Arabia and Jews in Israel. Trump's decision to remove Bannon from the National Security Council also impacted their impression about him.
  
  Following Trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election, Blood Tribe leader Christopher Pohlhaus celebrated by thanking Trump that "cheaper gas will make it easier to spread White Power across the whole country". Far-right activist Lauren Witzke thanked "men, especially white men, who turned out in force to put women back in their place". Turning Point USA ambassador Evan Kilgore said in his 100,000-followers X account, "Women, back to the kitchen; Abortions, illegal; Gays, back in the closet; Interracial marriage, banned; Illegals, pack your bags; trannies, back to the asylums; Jesus, back in our schools." In November, an investigation by Politico found that a Pennsylvania-based field staffer hired by the Republican Party to work at the Trump campaign was a co-host alongside Richard Spencer at a white nationalist podcast. The podcast host, Luke Meyer, confirmed to the news organization that he was indeed a worker for the Trump campaign and was fired shortly afterwards. In his podcast, he stated, "Why can't we make New York, for example, white again? Why can't we clear out and reclaim Miami?... A return to 80%, 90% white would probably be, probably the best we could hope for, to some degree." He also told Politico that, "in a few years, one of those groypers might even quietly bring me back in, with a stern warning for me to 'be more careful next time'."
  
  In 1990, Ivana Trump, Donald Trump's former wife, stated that he kept a copy of My New Order, a collection of speeches written by Adolf Hitler, by his bedside. According to Vanity Fair reporter Marie Brenner, Trump told her in a 1990s interview that it was "my friend Marty Davis from Paramount who gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he's a Jew". When Brenner asked Davis if he had given the book to Trump, he said that, "it was My New Order, Hitler's speeches, not Mein Kampf. I thought he would find it interesting. I am his friend, but I'm not Jewish." Trump further told Brenner that, "if I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them." After saying that illegal immigrants were "poisoning the blood of our country" in 2023, Trump said "they said Hitler said that". He further stated that Hitler used those words in a different way and said, "it's true. They're destroying the blood of the country, they're destroying the fabric of our country, and we're going to have to get them out." John F. Kelly, Trump's former chief of staff, stated in October 2024 that Trump spoke positively of Hitler during his tenure as president, including by saying that "Hitler did some good things" such as rebuilding the economy. Kelly also stated that Trump had told him that he desired military generals similar to the generals who served Hitler. Kelly's statements came after Trump's statements about Hitler and his generals were reported by several books a few years prior.
  
  In early 2016, Trump tweeted Mussolini's quote that "it is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep", attributed to social media account @ilduce2016 (Il Duce was Mussolini's honorific), an anonymous account secretly set-up by Gawker that posted #MakeAmericaGreatAgain tweets alongside Mussolini-related content and whose profile picture featured Mussolini's face with Trump's hair edited over it. When Trump was asked about the social media post in an interview with Chuck Todd, he said, "Chuck, it's OK to know it's Mussolini. Look, Mussolini was Mussolini... it's a very good quote, it's a very interesting quote, and I know it... and I know who said it. But what difference does it make whether it's Mussolini or somebody else? It's certainly a very interesting quote." In the same year, Trump shared a Twitter post from neo-Nazi account @WhiteGenocideTM and, three weeks after, he retweeted the same account again. Two days after, he retweeted another account with the handle @EustaceFash, whose profile banner included the words " white genocide ". Trump's second retweet of @WhiteGenocideTM was shortly deleted. Andrew Anglin, from The Daily Stormer, said that Trump was "giving us the old wink-wink" and that "it isn't statistically possible" that Trump could have retweeted the two accounts "back to back" by accident. Also in 2016, Trump posted an image that showed the Star of David with the words "most corrupt candidate ever" written on it, juxtaposed with the face of Hillary Clinton in front of a pile of money. The image was later deleted and replaced with another version that featured a circle instead of the Star of David.
  
  According to NPR, Trump's golf club in Bedminster twice held speeches by Nazi sympathizer Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, who had previously said that, "Hitler should have finished the job." In 2022, Trump was visited by self-described Nazi musical artist Kanye West and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago. West said shortly after the dinner that, "I like Hitler." Trump said after the incident that he did not know who Fuentes was.