Harris says she concurs with assessment that Trump is a fascist

PHILADELPHIA - Vice President Kamala Harris said on Wednesday she believes former president Donald Trump is a fascist, agreeing with the assessment of a growing number of Trump’s former top aides as she escalated her warnings about the Republican nominee’s character and fitness for office less than two weeks before Election Day.

Asked directly during a CNN town hall whether she thinks that Trump is a fascist, Harris said, “Yes, I do. Yes, I do.” Later, discussing voters concerned about the war in Gaza, the vice president said: “I also do know that for many people who care about this issue, they also care about bringing down the price of groceries. They also care about our democracy and not having a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.”

Harris’s comments came a day after a statement by Trump’s former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly that Trump meets the definition of a fascist, intensifying a debate over whether Trump has authoritarian tendencies and would abuse governmental power in a second term. Kelly, a retired Marine general, told the New York Times that Trump’s desire for unfettered power and other qualities fit the fascist label.

Mark T. Esper, who served as Trump’s secretary of defense, added Wednesday on CNN that “it’s hard to say” Trump does not fall into the category of a fascist. That followed a warning from retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a new book by The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward that the former president is “fascist to the core.”

The cascade of alarms has created the unprecedented spectacle of high-ranking military leaders, who by tradition are often nonpolitical, warning voters that a major presidential nominee is a potential dictator, underlining that message with a label that has traditionally been reserved for such figures as Italy’s Benito Mussolini rather than American political leaders.

Kelly’s warning has given Harris new ammunition for her assertion that Trump cannot be trusted with the powers of the presidency, and it has ensured that the question of Trump’s purported dictatorial character would be at the center of the campaign’s final days.

“He’s just putting out a 911 call to the American people,” Harris said of Kelly. “Understand what could happen if Donald Trump were back in the White House. And this time we must take very seriously [that] those folks who knew him best and who were career people are not going to be there to hold him back.”

Several hours before the CNN town hall Wednesday, Harris emerged from the vice-presidential residence at the Naval Observatory, an official building and one that has rarely been the scene of campaign pronouncements, to urge voters to heed the alarms from people who have worked with Trump that his beliefs are “incredibly dangerous.”

“Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable, and in a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions,” Harris told reporters. “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.”

She added, “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?”

Harris also responded to Kelly’s comment that Trump said that Adolf Hitler “did some good things.” The Atlantic, meanwhile, reported Tuesday that Trump once said in a private White House conversation: “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had. People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.”

“It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler,” the vice president said. “The man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans. All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is.”

Trump and his campaign sharply denied Kelly’s account of Trump’s comments.

“Thank you for your support against a total degenerate named John Kelly, who made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred!” the former president wrote on Truth Social. “This guy had two qualities, which don’t work well together. He was tough and dumb. The problem is his toughness morphed into weakness, because he became JELLO with time.”

This is not the first time former military or diplomatic figures have warned that Trump has authoritarian impulses, although they have rarely used the term “fascist” until now.

Last month, more than 700 onetime national security officials of both parties issued an open letter endorsing Harris while saying Trump represents “authoritarianism” and would endanger democracy.

“He has heaped praise on adversarial dictators like China’s Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, as well as the terrorist leaders of Hezbollah,” said the letter, released by National Security Leaders for America.

Speaking to the Times, Kelly said he felt compelled to denounce Trump publicly in the weeks leading up to the 2024 election because of the former president’s repeated comments about deploying the power of the executive branch, including the military if necessary, to eliminate the “enemy from within.”

“And I think this issue of using the military on - to go after - American citizens is one of those things I think is a very, very bad thing - even to say it for political purposes to get elected - I think it’s a very, very bad thing, let alone actually doing it,” Kelly said, according to the Times.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, said in a statement that “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 added that 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.” That is a reference to the 13 American service members killed in an attack at Kabul’s airport during the rocky U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

The notion that Trump is a would-be dictator has become central to Harris’s argument in the campaign’s final stretch. While top figures in both parties have hammered on this theme for months, Kelly’s decision to speak publicly has added a dramatic new resonance to the message.

Kelly is a decorated Marine who served two long tours in Iraq. In 2010 he lost a son, Lt. Robert Kelly, who was killed by a land mine while serving in Afghanistan.

Trump named the recently retired Kelly as homeland security secretary in 2017, one of several prominent military officials he appointed to top posts in his administration upon taking office. Trump then tapped Kelly to be his chief of staff, the most powerful staff position in the White House and a job Kelly held for about a year and a half.

Kelly has previously made clear his dim view of the former president. In an October 2023 interview with CNN, Kelly confirmed previous reporting that Trump told him service members who had been seriously wounded or tortured as prisoners of war were “suckers” and those who died in combat were “losers.”

And in November, about two months before the start of the Republican presidential primaries, Kelly said in an interview with The Post that he was bewildered by Trump’s enduring popularity within the Republican Party. “What’s going on in the country that a single person thinks this guy would still be a good president when he’s said the things he’s said and done the things he’s done?” Kelly said. “It’s beyond my comprehension he has the support he has.”

Kelly is one of the most prominent figures among scores of former Trump administration officials who have spoken out against his comeback bid. The group includes Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, who broke with Trump over his push to overturn his 2020 reelection loss, as well as over more traditional conservative issues.

The warnings by former Trump advisers are factoring heavily into Harris’s closing message, which paints Trump as unstable and power-hungry. Harris spent Monday campaigning across battleground states with former GOP congresswoman Liz Cheney, who emerged as a vocal Trump critic after his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The criticism of Trump by people who served under him has been notable among those with military backgrounds, a striking phenomenon given the nonpolitical culture of the American military. These former military figures have framed their efforts to block Trump from a return to the White House as a matter of national security.

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people - does not even pretend to try,” Jim Mattis, Trump’s former defense secretary, said in a 2020 statement.

Harris’s campaign sought to further emphasize Kelly’s latest comments during a media call Wednesday with Steve Anderson, a retired Army brigadier general supporting Harris, and Kevin Carroll, a senior counselor to Kelly when he was Trump’s homeland security secretary.

Anderson said he was grateful that Kelly was speaking up but wished that he had done so earlier, and he suggested that Kelly should go further and endorse Harris. Carroll said Kelly, as a former military leader, remains “loath” to make any partisan endorsements.

Still, Carroll added, “The man would rather chew on broken glass than vote for Donald Trump.”

Svitek and Edwards reported from Washington. Marianne LeVine in Washington contributed to this report.