President Joe Biden agrees with John Kelly, former White House chief of staff, that GOP presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump fits the definition of a “fascist.”
“You have heard from this president over and over again about the threats to democracy,” said Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, to reporters Wednesday. “You have heard from the former president himself, saying he is going to be a dictator on day one. This is him, not us.”
Jean-Pierre referred to Vice President Kamala Harris’s remarks earlier on Wednesday before and during the January 6 incident at the Capitol.
“Do we agree about that determination? Yes, we do,” said Jean-Pierre. “Yes, we have said, he said himself. The former president has said he is going to be the dictator on day one. We cannot ignore that. We cannot.”
President Biden has previously referred to Trump’s political philosophy as “semi-fascism.”
Jean-Pierre confirmed the president was “aware” of Kelly’s comments and wasn’t surprised by them.
“He believes in our institutions. He believes this will be a free and fair election,” she said about Biden. “We have to give the American people, some of them are voting right now, to make sure that they have the confidence in their vote and how important it is to cast their vote.”
In an interview published Wednesday, Kelly, who was chief of staff for Trump from 2017 to 2019, told the New York Times Trump “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist” and that once he said Adolf Hitler “did some good things.”
“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” said Kelly. “So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America.”
“Certainly, the former president is in the far-right area. He’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators, he has said that,” added the former Marine Corps general. “So, he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”
Kelly’s interview came one day after the Atlantic article
The Kelly interview followed one day after the Atlantic published a story that was similar about how former President Trump allegedly said, “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.” Trump’s campaign has denied the report and criticized Kelly as having “a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“John Kelly has totally beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated because he failed to serve his president well while working as chief of staff and currently suffers from a debilitating case of Trump derangement syndrome,” said Steven Cheung, Trump campaign communications director.
VP Harris added an impromptu speech Wednesday to her schedule, describing Trump as “increasingly unhinged and unstable.”
“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,” said Harris. “This is a window into who Donald Trump really is, from the people who know him best, from the people who worked with him side by side in the Oval Office and the Situation Room.”
“In a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guard rails against his propensities and his actions,” Harris continued.
