By The Independent (World News) | Created at 2024-10-24 09:10:23 | Updated at 2024-10-24 11:16:32
2 hours ago
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Donald Trump has lashed out at his former chief of staff John Kelly after he made damning claims about the Republican presidential candidate’s views of Adolf Hitler.
As the two presidential candidates make their final pitches to voters less than two weeks out from Election Day, John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, has issued a series of warnings that the former commander-in-chief may turn the US into a totalitarian state if he’s re-elected as president.
Kelly, the White House chief of staff between 2017 and 2019, has claimed that Trump fits the definition of a “fascist” and recalled a time when the former president heaped praise on “Hitler’s generals.”
The Trump campaign denied Kelly’s allegations and said the stories were “fabricated”.
On Wednesday night, the former president then took to Truth Social to trash Kelly’s claims as mere “lies” and brand his former chief of staff “a total degenerate”, “LOWLIFE” – and “JELLO.”
“Thank you for your support against a total degenerate named John Kelly, who made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred!” he posted about the man he once praises as a “true star” of his administration.
“This guy had two qualities, which don’t work well together. He was tough and dumb. The problem is his toughness morphed into weakness, because he became JELLO with time!
“The story about the Soldiers was A LIE, as are numerous other stories he told. Even though I shouldn’t be wasting my time with him, I always feel it’s necessary to hit back in pursuit of THE TRUTH.”
Trump continued: “John Kelly is a LOWLIFE, and a bad General, whose advice in the White House I no longer sought, and told him to MOVE ON! His wife once told me, at Camp David, John admires you tremendously, and when he leaves the Military, he will only speak well of you. I said, Thank you!”
Trump once said he wished his own military personnel showed him total loyalty like the Nazi generals had shown Hitler, Kelly claimed to The Atlantic.
“Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals,” Kelly recalled asking Trump, instead suggesting he meant the generals of the “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck. The former president allegedly confirmed: “Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.”
Kelly also issued a warning to The New York Times that the former president “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government” and that he “certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”
Hours before Trump’s social media tirade, Kamala Harris weighed in on Kelly’s claims, warning that “John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions” if Trump returns to the White House.
At a CNN town hall in Pennsylvania on Wednesday night, Harris doubled down no her warning, saying she believes that Trump is a “fascist.”
When asked by Anderson Cooper “do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?”, Harris responded: “Yes I do. Yes I do.”
Trump vented his fury at his Democratic presidential rival’s comments in a separate Truth Social post on Wednesday night, falsely claiming that she called him Hitler.
“Comrade Kamala Harris sees that she is losing, and losing badly, especially after stealing the Race from Crooked Joe Biden, 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!” he claimed.
