Trump’s former chief of staff says he is a fascist. Harris says it shows who Trump ‘really is’

Kamala Harris said Wednesday that Donald Trump’s recently reported comments to his longtime boss provide a window into who the former president “really is” and what kind of commander-in-chief he will be.

In interviews with The New York Times and The Atlantic published Tuesday, John Kelly warned that the Republican nominee meets the definition of a fascist, and that while Trump was in office, he suggested that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler “did good things.”

Harris repeated his increasingly dire warnings about Trump’s mental health and his intentions for the presidency.

“This is a window into who Donald Trump really is, to the people who know him best, to the people he’s worked with in the Oval Office and in the situation room,” Harris told reporters outside the vice president’s presence. residence in Washington.

The comments by Kelly, a retired Marine general who served in Trump’s White House from 2017 to 2019, build on previous warnings from senior Trump officials as the election enters its final two weeks.

Kelly has long criticized Trump and previously accused him of calling veterans killed in the war “suckers” and “losers.” His new warnings came as Trump, seeking a second term, vowed to greatly increase his use of the military at home and suggested he would use force to go after Americans he considers “enemies from within.”

“He remarked more than once, ‘You know, Hitler did great things,'” Kelly recalled to the Times. Kelly said that he usually closes the speech by saying “nothing [Hitler] he did, you could argue, it was great,” but Trump would bring up the topic again.

‘He wants soldiers loyal to him’: Harris

In his interview with the Atlantic, Kelly recalled that when Trump raised the idea of ​​needing “German generals,” Kelly asked if he meant “Bismarck’s generals,” referring to Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor who oversaw the reunification of Germany. “Surely you can’t name Hitler’s generals,” Kelly recalled asking Trump. The former president replied, “Yes, yes, Hitler’s generals.”

The Trump campaign denied the accounts. Campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said Kelly was “behaving badly with these false stories he made up.”

Harris said on Wednesday that Trump likes Hitler’s generals because “he doesn’t want soldiers who are loyal to the Constitution of the United States, he wants soldiers who are loyal to him. He wants soldiers who will be loyal to himself.”

Polls show the race is tight in swing states, and both Trump and Harris are sweeping the country making their final pitches to undecided voters.

Harris’ campaign has spent a long time reaching out to independent voters, using the support of longtime Republicans like former Rep.

The Harris campaign called on reporters on Tuesday to raise the voices of retired military officials who revealed how many former Trump officials are now against his campaign.

“People who know him very well are very against him, like his president,” said Brig.-Gen. Steve Anderson.

Anderson said he wishes Kelly would fully support Harris over Trump, something he has yet to do. But Col. Kevin Carroll, a former senior adviser to Kelly, said Wednesday that the former Trump aide “would rather chew on broken glass than vote for Donald Trump.”

WATCH | Trump and Harris campaign in key states:

Trump and Harris campaign in battleground states

On Monday, Donald Trump was in North Carolina, where he disparaged his Democratic rival and made false claims about the Biden administration diverting disaster relief money. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris teamed up with Republican Liz Cheney to appeal to moderate voters.

Kelly said Trump meets the definition of a fascist

Before serving as Trump’s chief of staff, Kelly served as the former president’s homeland security secretary, where he oversaw Trump’s efforts to build a wall on the US-Mexico border.

Kelly was also at the forefront of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration policy that led to the separation of thousands of immigrant parents and their children at the southern border. Those actions made him a villain to many on the left, including Harris.

When Kelly joined the board of the company that runs the nation’s largest detention center for unaccompanied migrant children, Harris wrote during his 2019 presidential bid that he was “the architect of the Trump Administration’s brutal child separation policy. Now he’s going to benefit from separating families. We’re better than this.” “

While in Miami for the primary debate in June 2019, Harris was one of the Democratic presidential candidates who headed south of Miami to a detention center. There, they protested the Trump administration’s mistreatment of young immigrants, including calling for Kelly to serve on the board of a company behind the site in Homestead, Fla., after leaving the Trump administration.

In his interview with the Times, Kelly also said that Trump met the definition of a fascist. After reading this definition aloud, including that fascism was “a far-right political ideology, an ultranationalist political movement and a movement characterized by a dictatorial leader,” Kelly concluded Trump “definitely falls into the general definition of a fascist, for sure.”

Kelly added that Trump often resents any attempt to impose his power, and that he would “like to be” a dictator.

“He certainly prefers an authoritarian approach to government,” Kelly told the Times.

“I think he’d like to be like him in business – he could tell people to do things and do them, and not worry too much about what’s legal and whatnot.”

Kelly is not the first former senior Trump administration official to pose a threat to the former president.

Retired Army general Mark A. Milley, who was Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Bob Woodward in his latest letter. War that Trump was “a big fan” and “the most dangerous person in this country.” And retired Jim Mattis, who served as defense secretary under Trump, reportedly later told Woodward he agreed with Milley’s assessment.