Vice President Kamala Harris condemned Donald Trump for once invoking the leadership style of Adolf Hitler, as reported by his former chief of staff John Kelly.
“So yesterday, we learned that Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, a retired four star general, confirmed that while Donald Trump was president, he said he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler had,” Harris said on Wednesday from her VP residence. “Donald Trump said that because he does not want a military that is loyal to the United States Constitution. He wants a military that is loyal to him. He wants a military who will be loyal to him, personally, one that will obey his orders even when he tells them to break the law or abandoned their oath to the Constitution of the United States.”
“In just the past week, Donald Trump has repeatedly called his fellow Americans the enemy from within, and even said that he would use the United States military to go after American citizens,” she continued. “And let’s be clear about who he considers to be the enemy from within, anyone who refuses to bend a knee or dares to criticize him would qualify, in his mind, as the enemy within, like judges, like journalists, like non-partisan election officials.”
“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. All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is. This is a window into who Donald Trump really is from the people who know him best, from the people who worked with him side by side in the Oval Office and in the Situation Room,” Harris said. “And it is clear from John Kelly’s words that Donald Trump is someone who, I quote, ‘Certainly falls into the general definition of fascists,’ who in fact vowed to be a dictator on day one and vowed to use the military as his personal militia to carry out his personal and political vendettas.”
“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. Those who once tried to stop him from pursuing his worst impulses would no longer be there to rein him in,” she concluded. “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? Thank you.”
Harris’ public address comes after Kelly said that Trump fits “the general definition of fascist” in a Tuesday interview with The New York Times.
“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” Kelly said, reading a dictionary definition. “So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America.”
The Times interview was published the same day The Atlantic reported Trump once said in a private conversation at the White House, “I need the kind of generals Hitler had.”
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