Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that Vice President Kamala Harris’s speech drawing parallels between former President Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler “inspires assassins.”
“This is the kind of inflammatory poison that divides our nation and inspires assassins,” he said in a post on X, quoting a video of Harris’s impromptu speech on Wednesday where she compared Trump to the once-Nazi leader.
“While Donald Trump was president, he said he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler had,” Harris said, citing a recent Atlantic article. “Donald Trump said that because he does not want a military that is loyal to the United States Constitution. He wants a military that is loyal to him. He wants a military who will be loyal to him personally, one that will obey his orders even when he tells them to break the law or abandon their oath to the Constitution of the United States.”
Harris also remarked that if elected, Trump would use the military as “his personal militia to carry out his personal and political vendettas.”
The former president has fiercely denied the accusations.
As part of his post, Kennedy said, “It’s particularly ironic since Biden/Harris have just pushed through DoD Directive 5240.01 giving the Pentagon power — for the first time in history — to use lethal force to kill Americans on U.S. soil who protest government policies.”
This is the kind of inflammatory poison that divides our nation and inspires assassins. It’s particularly ironic since Biden/Harris have just pushed through DoD Directive 5240.01 giving the Pentagon power — for the first time in history — to use lethal force to kill Americans on… https://t.co/svi4LesHxa
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) October 23, 2024
The Department of Defense’s Directive 5240.01 was originally issued in 2007 but was updated in September 2024. The Washington Examiner could not find evidence that the updated directive authorized “lethal force to kill Americans on U.S. soil who protest government policies.”
Previous social media rumors spread regarding a specific passage in the directive that was changed between 2020 and 2024. The passage was changed from “Under no circumstances shall any DoD Component or DoD employee engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination” to “No DoD civilian employee or member of the Armed Forces will engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.”
Neither directive authorizes personnel to engage or conspire to engage in assassination. Rumors spread that the directive did.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the DOD for comment on Kennedy’s claim.
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The reporting that Harris referenced regarded an allegation that Trump wondered why his generals weren’t as loyal as Hitler’s. John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, commented that he was surprised at Trump’s comments, asking him if he meant a different former German leader whose generals were indeed staunchly loyal to him.
Harris’s campaign has seized upon the article and used it to blast Trump repeatedly since its release on Tuesday. Her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), did the same earlier on Wednesday.