Vice President Kamala Harris warned Americans about her “increasingly unhinged and unstable” opponent Donald Trump in a rare address from her residence on Wednesday, after Trump’s former chief of staff cautioned that the president would rule as a “fascist.”
John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, has publicly criticized Trump many times, but escalated his attacks this week, saying that if the definition of fascism is “a far-right movement with a dictatorial leader and forcible suppression of opposition,” then his former boss “falls into the definition of a fascist.” In an interview with The Atlantic, Kelly said that Trump had praised Adolf Hitler for the loyalty and deference he commanded in his generals. Kelly said he had to explain that Hitler’s generals tried unsuccessfully to assassinate the murderous dictator on multiple occasions.
“It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans,” Harris said. “All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is.”
During the interview with Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, Kelly also repeated a previous Goldberg allegation that Trump had called fallen soldiers “suckers” and “losers” during a 2018 visit to France for WWI’s centennial anniversary: “President Trump used the terms suckers and losers to describe soldiers who gave their lives in the defense of our country. There are many, many people who have heard him say these things. The visit to France wasn’t the first time he said this.”
“In a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guard rails against his propensities and his actions,” Harris said from the Naval Observatory. “Those who once tried to stop him from pursuing his worst impulses would no longer be there and no longer be there to rein him in.”
“So the bottom line is this: We know what Donald Trump wants. He wants unchecked power. The question in 13 days will be, what do the American people want?” she added.
A spokesman for Trump’s campaign, Steven Cheung, said that Kelly’s accounts are “debunked stories,” and added that Kelly had “beclowned” himself.
“John Kelly has totally beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated because he failed to serve his President well while working as Chief of Staff and currently suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Cheung said in a statement. “President Trump has always honored the service and sacrifice of all of our military men and women, whereas Kamala Harris has completely disrespected the families of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice, including the Abbey Gate 13.”
Other former staffers, however, have agreed with Kelly’s classification.
“[Trump] is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country,” former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told journalist Bob Woodward. Former defense secretary Mark Esper has said previously that he fears Trump would wield military power against his domestic foes, telling CNN earlier this month, “My sense is his inclination is to use the military in these situations whereas my view is that’s a bad role for the military. It should only be law enforcement taking those actions.”
Kelly also told the New York Times that Trump lacks fundamental understanding of American values and the Constitution, and said that Trump favors personal loyalty above loyalty to the Constitution.
“He’s certainly the only president that has all but rejected what America is all about, and what makes America America, in terms of our Constitution, in terms of our values, the way we look at everything, to include family and government — he’s certainly the only president that I know of, certainly in my lifetime, that was like that,” Kelly said. “He just doesn’t understand the values — he pretends, he talks, he knows more about America than anybody, but he doesn’t.”