Donald Trump has denounced his former chief of staff, John Kelly, as a “degenerate” and a “low life” after the former US Marine Corps general gained the backing of Kamala Harris for calling his ex-boss a fascist.
With Mr Kelly’s intervention propelling the debate over fascism firmly to the centre of the US presidential election, the Republican nominee also turned his fire on his Democratic opponent. He inaccurately accused Ms Harris of calling him Adolf Hitler after the vice-president amplified Mr Kelly’s comments in a televised address before endorsing them in a CNN town hall meeting.
Mr Trump’s angry fusillade came in social media posts amid the fallout from Mr Kelly’s comments in a New York Times interview in which he recalled the former US president repeatedly lauding Hitler’s achievements when he was in the White House.
In a separate interview with the Atlantic, Mr Kelly described Mr Trump lamenting that he did not have generals who were loyal in the way he believed German military commanders had been to Hitler.
Why a Donald Trump election win could signal the end of Ireland’s golden years
Are markets too convinced of a Trump victory?
US election: Battle between CNN and Fox becomes more treacherous with the emergence of new media like Joe Rogan’s podcast
Donald Trump is ‘a little bit coarse. But he had good ideas and we had the best economy in 50 years’
Mr Trump responded on his Truth Social platform, calling Mr Kelly – who was his White House chief of staff for 18 months – a “degenerate ... who made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred”.
“This guy had two qualities, which don’t work well together,” he wrote. “He was tough and dumb. John Kelly is a low life.”
Mr Kelly told the New York Times that Mr Trump “fitted the general definition of a fascist” and said he would rule as a dictator if elected again.
In Wednesday’s statement, Ms Harris – who had been issuing increasingly strident warnings on the campaign trail about Mr Trump’s authoritarian outlook in the face of his increasingly threatening rhetoric – said the interview showed that he sought “unchecked power”.
She added that it was “deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous” that he would “invoke” Hitler. She later told the CNN moderator Anderson Cooper that she agreed that Mr Trump was a fascist and praised Mr Kelly for sending a “911 call” to the nation.
Mr Trump responded with a post on X that received more than 20 million views and 292,000 likes, accusing Ms Harris of “going so far as to call me Adolf Hitler, and anything else that comes to her warped mind”, because, he claimed, polls indicated she was losing.
The Trump campaign’s communications director, Steven Cheung, accused Ms Harris of “dangerous rhetoric” which he said was “directly to blame for the multiple assassination attempts against president Trump”.
However, Mr Kelly’s depiction of Mr Trump as an undemocratic authoritarian was backed up by Elizabeth Neumann, a former deputy chief of staff in the homeland security department in his administration, who told Politico that he “does not operate by the rule of law”.
“Does he have authoritarian tendencies? Yes,” she said. “Is he kind of leaning towards that ultranationalism component? Absolutely.”
[ Harris marks birthday with church visit after Trump’s crude rhetoric at rallyOpens in new window ]
Mr Trump’s Republican supporters belittled Mr Kelly’s intervention. Chris Sununu, the Republican governor of New Hampshire, called his portrayal of the former president “an outrageous statement” and said Mr Trump’s own record of extreme statements was “baked in” to the electorate’s assessment.
“I respect John Kelly a lot, but obviously, everyone knows there’s a huge personal relationship divide,” Mr Sununu told NewsNation.
The row overshadowed other developments on the campaign trail, where the Republican nominee extended his catalogue of recent threats to Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by the justice department to investigate allegations that he tried to overturn the 2020 election and hide classified documents.
Asked by the conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt whether he would grant himself a presidential pardon or fire Mr Smith if elected, Mr Trump said: “It’s so easy. I would fire him within two seconds.”
He also noted that “we got immunity from the supreme court”, a reference to a ruling by the court’s conservative majority last June that presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts carried out in the line of duty.
– Guardian