A progressive Democrat candidate for the US Senate has likened the current state of America under President Donald Trump to Nazi Germany. In an interview on CNN's Inside Politics hosted by Manu Raju on Sunday, Michigan Senate hopeful Mallory McMorrow was asked if she stood by earlier comments comparing Trump and his supporters to Nazis.
McMorrow told Raju, 'It is deeply concerning that we see an authoritarian slide, and as we talked about earlier, dividing people against each other to convince people that if you're not doing well economically, it's somebody else's fault is an incredibly dangerous place for us to be in.' She added, 'I don't think that a lot of people would argue that there are shades of authoritarianism here, that we need to be deeply concerned about.'
Deleted Tweets and Controversial Posts
McMorrow also told Raju that she deleted posts made before 2020 upon entering the US Senate race, noting that one of her opponents, Abdul El-Sayed, has also erased many posts. However, she clarified that she did not remove the posts because she thought they would be problematic for her election.
McMorrow currently serves in the Michigan State Senate and leads her colleagues as majority whip. A CNN investigation published earlier this week found that McMorrow had criticized the rural Midwest, expressed a desire to return to California, and disparaged Michigan's car manufacturing history in over 6,000 deleted tweets. She also posted multiple times about voting in California after claiming to have moved to Michigan.
The tweets unearthed by CNN show that about a week into Trump's first term in January 2017, McMorrow posted, 'Dr. Seuss, 1941. We've been here before, America. #AmericaFirst #NoMuslimBan,' linking to a Dr. Seuss cartoon about Nazi Germany. In July 2017, when another user said they had 'zero faith' in changing Trump supporters' minds, McMorrow replied, 'Agreed. But how do we fight back? Hitler had supporters. Stalin had supporters. Putin has supporters. No one will change their minds.'
In October 2020, McMorrow shared a video featuring a Holocaust survivor drawing parallels between Nazi Germany and 'Trump and his authoritarian aspirations.' She added, 'Please watch the full 4-minute mini doc that a dear friend created with Walter, a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor, warning about the parallels he sees between the rise of Nazi Germany and America today.'
Reaction from Primary Opponents
Since those posts became public, McMorrow has faced criticism from US Representative Haley Stevens, who called her tweets 'a little tacky' when asked by Raju on Capitol Hill. Stevens is one of McMorrow's primary opponents in the Michigan Senate race, along with El-Sayed. Stevens represents the party's establishment wing, while McMorrow and El-Sayed compete for progressive support.
McMorrow downplayed the criticism, pointing out that she is running against two polished politicians and has not aimed to hold elected office since she was 'in diapers.' She said, 'I've tweeted thousands of times. There is a level of authenticity and just grappling in the wake of the 2016 election of how somebody like Donald Trump could have been elected.' She added, 'What I know is we are not each other's enemies, and we need to understand each other better.'
Primary Polling and Context
The Michigan primary is on August 4, 2026. Polling conducted by the Glengariff Group and released on April 28 shows Stevens with 24.9 percent support, El-Sayed with 22.9 percent, and McMorrow trailing at 16 percent. In the wake of last week's White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting and assassination attempt on President Trump, many leaders across the political spectrum have called for a cooling of political rhetoric.
McMorrow is not the only left-leaning figure to compare Trump to Nazis. US Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas, who ran for US Senate before losing to James Talarico in March, faced backlash for branding Trump 'Temu Hitler' and calling his supporters 'mentally ill.'
