During a call-in portion of C-Span’s Washington Journal, a gentleman who said he was 92-years old also said he had met and spoken with Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump, when he was “in our village and talked to me personally.”

CALLER: He was really a fan of Hitler. He said that dictatorship is not as bad a people think. He said one-man rule is better than having too many people trying to bring their opinion up, and that was the same thing his son did. He believes that dictatorship is the best thing for this country. And sooner or later you’re going to wake up and believe when he becomes president, he’ll become a dictator. So, America, be aware.

We can’t verify the anecdote but it certainly fits with what we know about Trump and his father. As MeidasTouch noted when it reported on this call, Donald and Fred Trump were sued for racial discrimination in housing and Fred Trump was once arrested at a KKK rally.

Wherever he got it, Donald Trump’s Hitlerian talk should be taken very seriously, no matter how hard he and his allies pretend otherwise. Dana Milbank nailed it in a column called, “Trump’s fascist talk is what’s ‘poisoning the blood of our country.’” In it, Milbank points out how Trump routinely floats something outrageous then pretends he had done no such thing. Trump’s recent boast about a “unified Reich” in his second term, which he later blamed on a staffer, is a perfect example and one of many Milbank illustrates. It’s a familiar tactic that both signals to extremists you’re one of them and helps others deny it.

From Nazi Germany to Viktor Orban’s Hungary, [Yale Professor Jason] Stanley says, people invariably thought the rhetoric of the rising authoritarian was exaggerated and just for dramatic effect. “Historically, people always, always don’t take it seriously,” he said. Perhaps they don’t realize that Trump is deploying the exact same tropes — against migrants, judges, gender nonconforming people, universities, the media, “Marxists” — now being used by autocrats in Russia, India and Hungary. “If you look at what Trump is saying … everywhere in the world the authoritarians are saying that.”

And yet we drift, placidly, into autocracy. Okay, Trump is unifying the Reich. But Biden is so old!

But plenty of Trump’s prominent allies are willing to proudly spout the Hitlerian rhetoric.

More from Milbank:

Trump has promised “retribution” against his political opponents, and outside Trump’s trial this week, his allies amplified the threat. “They fear Donald Trump and they fear what’s going to happen if he becomes president again — and, I tell you, they should fear,” said Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Tex.).

“Yes,” agreed Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Tex.), at his side, wearing a necktie with Trump’s face printed on it.

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time,” the late, great Maya Angelou said. Whether Trump's rhetoric comes from Daddy Trump, Mein Kampf or Vladimir Putin, it is indeed poisoning the blood of our country.