CNN political analyst Carl Bernstein told host Brian Stelter that due to former President Donald Trump's behavior towards the COVID-19 pandemic and the Capitol riot, he must be viewed as the United States' new type of war criminal.
Bernstein said Trump must be viewed as a war criminal because of what Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said about the former president in the aftermath of the Capitol riot.
"I think we need to calmly step back and maybe look at Trump in a different context. He is America’s — our own American war criminal of a kind we’ve never experienced before," Bernstein said.
"You just said war criminal. What do you mean, war criminal?" Stelter asked.
"I did. Well, in international law, there had been, quote, crimes against humanity. I think what we’re talking about, Trump’s crimes as an American war criminal, in his own country, that he has perpetrated upon our people, including the tens of thousands of people who died because of his homicidal negligence in the pandemic, putting his own electoral interests above the health of our people as they were slaughtered in this pandemic," Bernstein replied.
"Looking at his actions in terms of fomenting a coup to hold onto office in which the head of the American military, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has now compared Trump — not the press, not reporters comparing Trump to Hitler, but rather the head of the American military comparing him and his movement to brown shirts, to the Reichstag fire," he continued.
When Stelter noted he would get some heat for calling Trump a war criminal, Bernstein it needed to be viewed in its new context because it was "a war against both our people in terms of what the effects of his policies and selfishness."