Kamala Harris has denounced Donald Trump as a “fascist” who wants “uncontrolled power” and an army personally loyal to him after allegations emerged about the former president's repeated admiration for Hitler.
On Wednesday, the vice president gave a surprise speech from her residence in Washington, DC, following reports that John Kelly, Trump's former chief of staff, recalled how Trump regretted not having generals who would swear allegiance to him in the same way. as military commanders they served Hitler in Nazi Germany.
“Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable, and in a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be barriers against his propensities and actions. Those who once tried to stop him from following his worst impulses would no longer be there to stop him,” Harris said.
Harris said the comments relayed by Kelly showed that Trump “does not want a military that is loyal to the United States Constitution.”
“He wants a military that is loyal to him personally, one that obeys his orders, even when he tells them to break the law or abandon their oath to the United States Constitution,” he said.
Framing the question as a difficult choice for American voters who will go to the polls for the presidential election on November 5, he added: “We know what Donald Trump wants. You want power without management. The question in 13 days will be what the American people want.”
Harris' speech came after she spent more than a week highlighting Trump's previous branding of his political opponents as “the enemy within” and demands that the military be deployed to those causing election “chaos.”
In officially recorded conversations in the New York Times, Kelly, who was White House chief of staff for 18 months during Trump's presidency, said his former boss repeatedly praised Hitler, even when he contradicted him, and fit the definition. of fascist from the dictionary.
“He commented more than once that, 'You know, Hitler did some good things too,'” said Kelly, who also said Trump would rule like a dictator if elected again.
Kelly, a retired four-star Navy basic, made similar comments in an interview with the Atlantic.
Referring to the various reports, Harris said: “It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous for Donald Trump to invoke Adolf Hitler, the man responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans. “This is a window into who Donald Trump really is, from the people who know him best.”
And he added: “It is clear from John Kelly's words that Donald Trump is someone who, quote, certainly falls into the basic definition of a fascist, who, in fact, swore to be a dictator from day one and promised to use the military as a his private militia to carry out his personal and political vendettas.”
It was the second time in a week that Harris, in fact, called the Republican candidate a fascist. Last week, he responded affirmatively when a Detroit radio interviewer asked him if Trump's vision amounted to fascism, although he did not say the word directly.
Trump's spokesman has denied Kelly's claims that Trump said this, calling it “absolutely false.”
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Harris' comments Wednesday were the clearest sign yet that she had changed tactics from a previous approach initially taken after becoming her party's nominee, when she and her surrogates attempted to downplay and belittle Trump. In one example, mocking his obsession with the size of the crowds at his rallies.
Theories abound about what Harris could do to divert voters from Trump's appeal, which has centered on promises to reduce prices that rose under Joe Biden and expel immigrants from the country.
In an interview today on CNN, prominent Republican pollster Frank Luntz said the same kind of message Harris pushed this afternoon wasn't working.
“The interesting thing is that [when] Harris focused on why she should be elected president, and that's when the numbers went up,” Luntz said.
“And then the moment he turned anti-Trump and focused on him and said, don't vote for me, vote against him, that's when everything froze.”
Kelly's characterization of Trump as a fascist echoes that of General Mark Milley, the retired former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the military. Milley, whom Trump has said should be executed, is quoted by journalist Bob Woodward in a recently published book calling Trump “a complete fascist” and “fascist to the core.”
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