Former NFL punter Chris Kluwe has doubled down on his Nazi claims against the MAGA movement after he was arrested Tuesday at a city council meeting in Huntington Beach, California.
Kluwe was bundled out of the chamber by cops after protesting a new plaque on the city library that includes the words “Magical,” “Alluring,” “Galvanizing,” and “Adventurous,” to seemingly spell out MAGA. He tore into the movement, likening it to the Nazi party.
He was cited and released after spending four hours in custody Tuesday according to the New York Post. On Thursday he spoke to CNN’s Laura Coates, and reiterated his ill feeling towards President Donald Trump and his orbit.
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Kluwe said he performed the stunt because his local elected officials do not care about their constituents and are more focussed on rising higher in Trump’s “sphere of influence.”
He added that he was rattled by the plaque because of what he thinks it really stands for. “So for me it’s the fact that MAGA, as I said, is explicitly a Nazi ideology, and it’s, they are coming after trans rights.
“They’re coming after resegregation and racism, like they, they are tearing down our government because they can only see power for themselves and they don’t care who they hurt to have to get it.”
Kluwe, who was an athlete in the NFL from 2005 to 2013, added that he feels the message is inappropriate for a public place.
“I feel that a political message like that is certainly not appropriate on a public library, and let’s face it, public libraries, they are apolitical places,” he told Coates. “There should be no political message on the, on the public library.
“It’s a space for everyone to come in, regardless of your political affiliation.”
Kluwe then compared the situation to that of Germany after the rise of Hitler. He said a lot of “good Germans” trusted the dictator in the 1930s and thought he would guide the country to a better place. After World War II they had deep “regrets.”
“I think right now there are a lot of good Americans who think Trump has their best interest in mind, but Trump clearly has his own interests in mind, and he does not care about anyone else.
“And I would rather not see those people have regrets when the bodies stop falling and the blood stops being shed because they did the right thing now instead of waiting.”
Kluwe, who played eight seasons with the Minnesota Vikings, went on to directly compare the president’s tone to that of Adolf Hitler. “Again, Hitler promised what he was going to do. He, he explicitly laid out, ‘Jews are the problem. I am going to get rid of them. That will make this country great.’
“Trump has said immigrants are the problem, trans people are the problem. ‘We are going to get rid of them, and that will make this country great.’
“And it is very, very similar to what Hitler promised, and it’s not going to make this country great, it’s just going to make this country worse.”
