- Donald Trump has threatened to sue CNN for repeatedly calling him a liar over his election-fraud claims.
- Trump's 282-page warning letter criticizes the network for likening his false propaganda tactics to those of the Nazis.
- That's a 'particularly offensive slur' given Trump's 'Jewish family members,' his lawyers told CNN.
In threatening to sue CNN for defamation this week, Donald Trump — who once likened a mob that included neo-Nazis to "very fine people" — took particular offense to the network comparing his election-fraud claims to Nazi propaganda efforts.
The Trump-Nazi analogies are "particularly offensive," given that Trump has "Jewish members of his immediate family," the 282-page warning letter to the network complained.
Trump's daughter, Ivanka, converted to Judaism to marry Jared Kushner, an Orthodox Jew; their three children — Trump's grandchildren — are Jewish.
Trump is threatening to sue CNN and other yet-named outlets for calling him a liar and for calling his unfounded claims of widespread election fraud the "big lie."
He insists that he couldn't be lying, because he "subjectively believes" there was widespread election fraud in 2020; he claimed that he lost the presidential election because it was "rigged."
Nearly 90 judges, the ex-head of CISA, independent and GOP watchdogs agree the election was fair
At least 86 judges — including some appointed by Trump — have rejected lawsuits attempting to overturn the 2020 results.
The former head of Trump's own Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency called the election fair and secure.
A team of Republican lawyers, judges and ex-senators has also concluded there was no widespread voter fraud that could have tipped the election to Trump.
And multiple officials in his own administration, including former Attorney General Bill Barr, told Trump that there was no fraud that could overturn the results.
Still, the former president insists he is not lying when he says the election was stolen from him due to voter fraud.
"For the months and years that have followed the 2020 election, CNN took it upon itself to engage in a campaign of dissuasion — branding President Trump a liar, and one who subscribes to the notion of the 'Big Lie,'" the 282-page warning letter complained.
"As CNN repeatedly reminds its readers, that concept is linked to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels and the Nazi-era idiom, 'If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,'" the letter says, quoting from a year-old CNN analysis piece.
"If the articles fail to overtly link Trump to Hitler — a particularly offensive slur for a man with Jewish members of his immediate family — they regularly draw comparisons between Trump and China's Xi Jinping," the letter continues, mentioning the Communist country's president for life.
When white nationalists and neo-Nazis gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, for the "Unite the Right" rally that ended with a counterprotester fatally mowed down by an avowed white supremacist, Trump did not unequivocally condemn the mob.
The angry crowd had marched with tiki-torches in protest of the removal of a Confederate statue. They chanted, "blood and soil" — the translation of a Nazi slogan — and "Jews will not replace us."
In an impromptu press conference after the rally, Trump said, "You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."
The Washington Post did a fact check of Trump's claim of "fine people" and gave him four Pinocchios, saying the crowd was not made up of those quietly protesting the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue but was specifically planned by white supremacists and far-right groups.
At that press conference, the former president also compared removing Confederate statues to tearing down monuments to the Founding Fathers.
Among the offending CNN articles cited in Trump's letter this week is one from a year ago, an analysis in which Editor-at-large Chris Cillizza quoted Trump telling rally-goers in Sarasota, Florida, "If you say it enough and keep saying it, they'll start to believe you."
"Trump was talking about alleged disinformation directed at him and other Republicans," Cillizza wrote.
"But WOW does that quote explain everything you need to know about his approach to the presidency and life."
Cillizza pointed out that Trump's quote "was a near replication of this infamous line from Nazi Joseph Goebbels: 'If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.'"