Vice President Kamala Harris said on Wednesday it is “deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous” that former President Donald Trump invoked Adolf Hitler while he was president, reportedly saying at one point that he wanted generals like the ones Hitler had.
“Donald Trump said that because he does not want a military that is loyal to the United States Constitution,” Harris said, responding to the revelations from the vice presidential residence on Wednesday. “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 abandon their oath to the Constitution of the United States.”
“We know what Donald Trump wants,” Harris added. “He wants unchecked power. The question in 13 days will be, ‘What do the American people want?’”
Harris’ remarks come in response to recent on-the-record comments from John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff and Homeland Security secretary, who called Trump “an authoritarian” and someone who fits the “general definition of fascist,” in a New York Times interview published Tuesday.
“Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Kelly said.
In a separate interview with the Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, Kelly offered more details from his time working for the former president.
“I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said, according to Kelly. “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.”
Kelly also said that Trump used the terms “suckers” and “losers” to describe soldiers who gave their lives defending the country on multiple occasions.
“Vietnam would have been a waste of time for me. Only suckers went to Vietnam,” he said during his presidency, according to Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019.
Kelly added that it was Trump’s remarks — both while he was in office and more recently on the campaign trail — indicating he wants to use the military against Americans that most troubled him.
“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.
Harris also condemned those remarks on Wednesday, saying, “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.”
“And let’s be clear about who he considers to be the enemy from within,” she added. “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 nonpartisan election officials.”
Russia is counting on Trump to Make Russia Great Again, and to turn us from a democracy into an autocracy.
Every single economic policy Trump has proposed puts us in line with Putin’s BRICS nations, eg. Russia, China, Iran, S. Africa Brazil and India. All with governments no real American would actually wish to be governed by, no matter how much they claim to be “democracies,” eg. S Africa, Brazil and India, they are all run by corruption and prone to electing autocras.
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Never a good day for Trump when Hitler is trending.
I would like to think the wheels are coming off, but won’t be burned twice. #finishtheassignment
Vance during another lie-filled speech in Las Vegas just moments ago …
Way to go, JD, or whatever your name is this year.
Do the young, I am old, know who Hitler is and what he did?
Gotta keep pounding that message. It won’t persuade the MAGA crowd but the fence sitters might decide to take a leap of faith into the blue.