Vice President Kamala Harris briefly popped up Wednesday to cite a disputed Atlantic report as evidence that Donald Trump is a tyrant-in-waiting and disrespectful of the US military — despite the account being challenged by the sister of a murdered soldier.
Harris, 60, spoke for just three minutes during her only public event of the day and shoehorned in an appeal to Jewish voters who may be turning away from the Democratic ticket.
The venerable liberal outlet quoted former White House chief of staff John Kelly as saying Trump, 78, had spoken positively about “Hitler’s generals” and had shown disdain for American military servicemembers during his term of office.
Kelly — who served as Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019 — also slammed Trump in a New York Times interview published Tuesday, claiming his former boss fits the “general definition of a fascist” and “prefers the dictator approach to government.”
He also reiterated past statements that Trump said those who were captured in battle were “losers and suckers” — despite the former president’s denials, and claimed the 45th president had told him, “You know, Hitler did some good things, too.”
“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,” Harris said Wednesday just now outside her official residence at the Naval Observatory in northwest Washington DC.
“All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is,” she claimed.
The attempted Trump takedown came as reports indicate Harris’ campaign is nervous about her standing in the presidential race — and the highlighting of the Holocaust could be considered an appeal to Jewish voters who are hesitant to vote for the veep over her past criticism of Israel
The author of The Atlantic piece, Jeffrey Goldberg, also wrote Trump had cursed and refused to pay for Texas soldier Vanessa Guillen‘s funeral — which prompted Guillen’s sister Mayra to say the Atlantic report was “hurtful & disrespectful” and that Trump was “respectful” to her family.
“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,” Harris said Wednesday, “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.
“We know what Donald Trump wants. He wants unchecked power. The question in 13 days will be, what do the American people want?”
Trump has argued his comments about top Democrats being the “enemy from within” is not a “threat” — and that the Democrats are the ones threatening him.
“Kamala Harris is a stone-cold loser who is increasingly desperate because she is flailing, and her campaign is in shambles,” Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement. “That is why she continues to peddle outright lies and falsehoods that are easily disproven. The fact is that Kamala’s dangerous rhetoric is directly to blame for the multiple assassination attempts against President Trump and she continues to stoke the flames of violence all in the name of politics. She is despicable and her grotesque behavior proves she is wholly unfit for office.”