Vice President Kamala Harris called former President Donald Trump a “fascist” at a CNN town hall in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, echoing criticism from her onetime chief of staff who increasingly sounded off to voters about his unfitness for office.
John KellyA retired four-star Marine general who is Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, featured this week warning that his former boss fits the “general definition of a fascist”. And he said in private conversations that Trump admired dictators and wished he had loyal military generals like those of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Harris said Kelly’s comments, just two weeks before the election, were a “911 call to the American people.”
“We have to take the people who know him best very seriously,” he continued, referring to the numerous appeals. Trump’s former advisers who separated from him and warned the public that he should not be trusted with power again.
“Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?” host Anderson Cooper asked Harris.
“Yes, I do. Yes, I do,” he replied.
He later used the word publicly to refer to Trump for the first time, saying voters were concerned about “not having a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.”
“I believe Donald Trump is dangerous,” he said. “As the president of the United States, as commander-in-chief, he says to his generals, in essence, why can’t you be more like Hitler’s generals?” Come on!”
In recent days, Harris has argued more strongly that Trump is unfit for office. After Kelly’s comments became public on Wednesday, she issued statements to highlight them and criticize Trump.
Harris noted that he has the support of Republicans worried about Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, such as former Rep. Liz Cheney is campaigning for him this week. And Harris vowed that, unlike Trump, he would be “a president for all Americans.”
After the town hall ended, Trump tweeted X and Truth Social moments, claiming that he “saw” Harris “swallowing,” “escalating his rhetoric, going as far as calling me Adolf Hitler and everything else. He’s lost his mind.”
Harris didn’t call Trump “Hitler,” but instead said the American people “deserve a president who works across the aisle and encourages healthy debate.” [is] unafraid of good ideas, wherever they come from, while maintaining certain standards for how we think about roles and responsibilities, and certainly not comparing himself to admiring Hitler. informed comments About Hitler.
Trump did not directly respond to Harris calling him a “fascist” in his post on the social network.
After the town hall, Harris spoke directly to an attendee who asked about abortion — telling her that he wasn’t trying to convert her to his way of thinking, and that his position on abortion was not to disagree with anyone’s religious views, but to keep the government out of the decision.
With Election Day less than two weeks away, polls show a deadlocked race that analysts say is essentially a coin flip and every battleground state could flip either way.
Later at the town hall, Harris spoke about his religious faith a way he rarely does.
“I pray every day. Sometimes twice a day,” he said before mentioning his childhood church in Oakland, California. “I was raised to believe in a loving God. Believing your faith is a verb. You live your faith, and that’s your job and your life’s job to think about ways you can serve to inspire other people.”
Meanwhile, halfway across the country in Traverse City, Michigan, Trump continued his personal insults in a 90-minute speech, calling Harris’ running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz a “sick boy” and calling Harris a “low IQ.” individual’ and added: ‘This woman is crazy.’
Trump also repeatedly criticized Michigan’s largest city, Detroit, saying it was “being destroyed by stupid politicians.”
“For 40 years I’ve been hearing that Detroit is coming back. It never came back,” he said.
Trump’s often meandering speech touched on many of his usual talking points, demonizing migrants as coming from prisons and insane asylums, highlighting crimes committed by migrants and spending a lot of time discussing the southern border.
“I will save every occupied and conquered city in America, and we will put these brutal, bloodthirsty criminals in jail or deport them,” he said of immigrants.
During a segment of his remarks discussing the damage from Hurricane Helene flooding, he referred to the disaster as a “water hurricane,” which the Harris campaign was quick to point out on social media.
Trump also called Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard on stage to address his supporters. Trump has often touted their support, arguing that it shows his supporters also have left-leaning roots.