Vice President Kamala Harris was asked at her televised town hall hosted by CNN Wednesday if she thinks the former president Donald Trump is a fascist, to which she responded: “Yes, I do.” That comment came hours after she warned Trump wants “unchecked power” if he returns to the White House. Her remarks in Washington focused on recent comments by John F. Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, that his former boss met the definition of a fascist and would govern like a dictator if elected again. Trump spoke at a faith-based event and an evening rally Wednesday in the battleground state of Georgia.
Harris slams Trump as a ‘fascist’ during town hall
Vice President Kamala Harris answered questions from voters at a town hall in Aston, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday night as she makes a final pitch to Americans in what is expected to be a razor-thin election.
The town hall, moderated by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, gave her the chance to respond to and capitalize on comments made by John Kelly, the former chief of staff to Donald Trump, who said this week in an interview with The New York Times that his old boss fit the definition of a “fascist.”
The former Marine general also said that Trump had told him multiple times that Adolf Hitler had “done some good things.”
Cooper did not avoid the topic, asking Harris point-blank at the top of the discussion, “Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?”
“Yes, I do. Yes, I do. And I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted,” Harris replied, referencing Kelly.
She also reflected on why the decorated general might have felt the need to bring his concerns to light just two weeks prior to Election Day.
“Why is he telling the American people now?” Harris questioned rhetorically, before answering: “Frankly, I think of it as… he’s just putting out a 911 call to the American people.”
Harris has already been reviving messaging about Trump’s supposed threat to American democracy as part of an argument — frequently heard in her stump speeches — that Trump is unfit for office.
She returned to that pattern by calling Trump “increasingly unhinged and unstable” in her first on-camera reaction to Kelly’s comments on Wednesday afternoon.
“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,” she added. “All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is.”
The vice president warned of the potential for unchecked power if Trump were to win another term in the White House.
“In a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions,” she said. “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,” Harris said Wednesday afternoon.
The town hall also gave Harris a chance to sway the last sliver of the electorate who may have questions about her ability to handle the job of the presidency — especially because Pennsylvania is a key battleground state.
That included responding to questions about how her presidency would be different from President Joe Biden’s, to which she answered, “My administration will not be a continuation of the Biden administration. I bring to this role my own ideas and my own experience. I represent a new generation of leadership on a number of issues and believe we have to actually take new approaches.”
She cited her past work on the foreclosure crisis and her plans to protect homeowners from predatory lending.
Later in the town hall, Harris outright called Trump a “fascist” while answering a question on Palestinian civilians being killed in Gaza, which Harris called “unconscionable,” and voters choosing to stay home or protest vote over the war, arguing that many are not single-issue voters.
“Listen, I am not going to deny the strong feelings that people have,” Harris said. “I don’t know that anyone who has seen the images who would not have strong feelings about what has happened, much less those who have relatives, who have died and been killed. And I and I know people and I’ve talked with people, so I appreciate that.”
“But I also do know that for many people who care about this issue, they also care about bringing down the price of groceries,” Harris argued. “They also care about our democracy and not having a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist. They also care about the fact that we need practical, common-sense solutions from a leader who is willing to work across the aisle on behalf of the American people and not themselves. They want a president who cares about a fundamental freedom to make decisions about your own body, understanding that we’re not trying to change anyone’s belief, but let’s not have the government telling women what to do with their body.”
Harris spoke of the need to support small-business owners, calling them “the backbone of the American economy,” and stated that her approach would include tax cuts that would allow small businesses to “invest in themselves, and grow, and in the process invest in communities, invest in neighborhoods, and strengthen our economy overall.”
She discussed bringing to the job her experience of taking care of her sick mother and of raising children, “which is why my plan and my approach says, hey, you shouldn’t have to wipe out all your savings to qualify for Medicaid.”
Cooper also pressed Harris on more specific policies that she has mentioned, including a compromise to set aside $650 million in funding for a wall at the southern border. He asked, “Under Trump, you criticized the border wall more than 50 times. You called it stupid, useless, and a medieval vanity project. Is a border wall stupid?”
Harris answered, “Well let’s talk about Donald Trump and that border wall. Remember he said Mexico would pay for it? Well, they didn’t. How much did he build? I think the last number I saw is about 2%.”
She continued, “I am going to bring forward that bipartisan bill to further strengthen and secure our borders. Yes, I am. And I am going to work across the aisle to pass a comprehensive bill that deals with a broken immigration system.”
Harris explained, “America has always had migration, but there needs to be a legal process for it. People have to earn it. And that’s the point that I think is the most important point that can be made, which is that we need a president who is grounded in common sense and practical outcomes.”
US warns Musk political group that $1m voter giveaway may be illegal
A letter sent to Elon Musk’s political action committee from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) warned that his lottery-style giveaway of $1m per day to a registered voter may be illegal, according to US media.
Mr Musk, who is the world’s richest man, actively campaigns for Republican Donald Trump in his presidential bid against Kamala Harris.
Over the weekend, the owner of Tesla and X/Twitter began giving away prizes to American voters who signed a petition.
It’s unclear when the DOJ letter was sent to Mr Musk’s organisation, America PAC. DOJ investigators have declined to comment on the case.
US outlets, including CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, reported on Wednesday that the letter informed Musk’s team that the giveaway may violate federal election laws.
It was sent by the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section following outrage from Democrats over the cash stunt.
Under US law, it is illegal to pay people to register to vote. But it remains unclear whether the sweepstakes breaks any laws.
Mr Musk’s contest offers money to signatories of a petition, which the PAC circulated.
“We want to try to get over a million, maybe 2 million voters in the battleground states to sign the petition in support of the First and Second Amendment,” Mr Musk said in Pennsylvania on Saturday when he announced the event.
The contest rules state that winners must be registered to vote, but no party affiliation is required.
“We are going to be awarding $1 million (£770,000) randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election,” he said.
The America PAC website states the goal is getting “1 million registered voters in swing states to sign in support of the Constitution, especially freedom of speech and the right to bear arms”.
It is open to voters in seven swing states – Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina. US election day is 5 November.
On Tuesday, a group of Republican ex-prosecutors wrote to the DOJ urging officials to investigate the contest.
“We are aware of nothing like this in modern political history,” they wrote, pointing to potential federal and state law violations.
“Law enforcement agencies are appropriately reluctant to take action shortly before elections that could affect how people vote. But serious questions arising under laws that directly regulate the voting process must be an exception.”
Mr Musk previously dismissed claims that the contest is illegal, saying: “You can be from any or no political party, and you don’t even have to vote.”
On Sunday, the contest reframed its rules, describing the money as payment for a job, according to CNN.
America PAC said the winner will be “selected to earn $1M as a spokesperson for America PAC”. Winners have gone on to film pro-Trump videos.
Several legal experts have told the BBC that they believe the contest may be illegal.
“His offer is only open to registered voters, so I think his offer runs afoul of this provision,” said Paul Schiff Berman, a law professor at the George Washington University.
He pointed to the US Code on electoral law, which states that anyone who “pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting” faces a potential $10,000 fine or a five-year prison sentence.
Adav Noti of the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center said Mr Musk’s scheme “violates federal law and is subject to civil or criminal enforcement by the Department of Justice”.
“It is illegal to give out money on the condition that recipients register as voters,” Mr Noti told the BBC.
But Jeremy Paul, who teaches law at Northeastern University, said that Mr Musk may have found a legal loophole.
He said that, while there is an argument that the offer could be illegal, it is “targeted and designed to get around what’s supposed to be the law” and he believes the case would be difficult to make in court.
Why Harris moved from ‘joy’ to calling Trump ‘a fascist’
On Wednesday afternoon, Kamala Harris stood in front of the vice-presidential residence in Washington DC, and delivered a short but withering attack on her Republican presidential opponent.
Calling Donald Trump “increasingly unhinged and unstable”, she cited critical comments made by John Kelly, Trump’s former White House Chief of Staff, in a New York Times interview.
The vice-president quoted Kelly describing Trump as someone who “certainly falls into the general definition of fascists” and who had spoken approvingly of Hitler several times.
She said her rival wanted “unchecked power” and later, during a CNN town hall event, was asked point-blank if she believed he was a “fascist”. “Yes, I do,” she replied.
Shortly after the town hall finished, Trump posted on X and Truth Social that Harris’s comments were a sign that she was losing. He said she was “increasingly raising her rhetoric, going so far as to call me Adolf Hitler, and anything else that comes to her warped mind”.
In the home stretch of political campaigns – particularly one as tight and hard-fought as the 2024 presidential race – there is a natural tendency for candidates to turn negative. Attacks tend to be more effective in motivating supporters to head to the polls and disrupting the opposing campaigns.
For Harris, however, the heavier hand toward Trump stands in contrast to the more optimistic, “joyful” messaging of the early days of her campaign.
While she did warn at the Democratic convention of a Trump presidency without the guardrails, Harris largely stepped back from President Joe Biden’s core campaign message that Trump posed an existential threat to American democracy.
According to political strategist Matt Bennett of the centrist Democratic group Third Way, however, it is clear why Harris was quick this time to amplify Kelly’s dark portrait of Trump as a man with authoritarian tendencies.
“Everything she does now is tactical,” he said. “The imperative was to make sure as many voters as possible know about what Kelly said.”
The vice-president’s latest remarks come on the heels of a multi-week strategy by her campaign to appeal to independent voters and moderate Republicans who could be open to supporting the Democratic ticket. Polls suggest the race is extremely tight, with neither candidate having a decisive lead in any of the battleground states.
The suburbs around the biggest cities in key battleground states – Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee and Phoenix, for instance – are populated by college-educated professionals who have traditionally voted for Republicans but who polls indicate have doubts about returning Trump to the White House.
“Her case for how she wins this thing is to create as broad a coalition as possible and bring over disaffected Republicans – people who just don’t feel that they can vote for Trump again,” Mr Bennett said.
Devynn DeVelasco, a 20-year-old independent from Nebraska, is one of those who had already been convinced by the long list of senior Republicans who worked for then-President Trump but now say he is unfit for office.
Although she hopes some Republicans will join her in supporting Harris, she worries there is fatigue around the claims made about the former president.
“When these reports [about Kelly’s comments] came out I wasn’t shocked, it didn’t change much,” Ms DeVelasco told the BBC.
Republican strategist Denise Grace Gitsham said voters have been hearing similar rhetoric about Trump since 2016, so any new allegations were unlikely to move the dial.
“If you’re voting against Donald Trump because you don’t like his personality, you’re already a decided voter,” she told the BBC. “But if you’re somebody who’s looking at the policies and that matters more to you than a vibe or a personality, then you’re going to go with the person who you felt you did best under while they were in the White House.”
Both Harris and Trump have been sharpening their barbs in recent days. During a swing through Midwest battleground states on Monday, Harris repeatedly warned of the consequences of a Trump presidency – on abortion rights, on healthcare, on the economy and on US foreign policy.