Trump lashes out after being called a "fascist," insists his former chief of staff is just "dumb"

For her closing argument, Vice President Kamala Harris is jumping on the damning testimony of former Trump administration officials who have called her rival a "fascist." In response, former President Donald Trump launched into a flurry of posts on Truth Social that seemed to garble some of the accusations leveled against him.

“Comrade Kamala sees that she is losing, and losing badly, especially after stealing the Race from Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “So now she is increasingly raising her rhetoric, going so far as to call me Adolf Hitler, and anything else that comes to her warped mind. She is a Threat to Democracy, and not fit to be President of the United States — And her Polling so indicates!”

Harris has repeated warnings by former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley and former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper that Trump is a "fascist," but she has never likened him Hitler. 

Trump appeared to be referencing an accusation by Kelly and others that he repeatedly brought up the German dictator and said that he "did some good things." Trump also reportedly wished that he could emulate Hitler in commanding total obedience from the military. Trump failed to note that while Hitler's generals usually carried out his orders, including those targeted at Jews and other civilians, they often chafed under his erratic leadership and feared that, in the closing stages of World War II, he would drag the country to doom. Some of them tried to assassinate him on multiple occasions.

Though the Hitler quotes were already reported before this fall, Kelly confirmed the reporting in an interview with The New York Times. That also provoked an angry broadside from Trump, who called the former Marine general a "lowlife" with "Trump derangement syndrome" in a Truth Social post. “This guy had two qualities, which don’t work well together. He was tough and dumb,” Trump wrote. “The problem is his toughness morphed into weakness, because he became JELLO with time!”

Harris also accused Trump of being a would-be dictator lusting for “unchecked power“ and who had become ”increasingly unhinged and unstable," referencing Kelly's interview with the Times and Trump's own public remarks. The former president, per Kelly and other ex-officials, demands absolute personal loyalty, wants to turn the military on his political opponents and does not respect the Constitution. She doubled down at a CNN town hall: When asked if she thought Trump was a fascist, she responded, "Yes, I do."

“I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted,” she added.