Harris says Kelly's remarks offer "a window into who Donald Trump really is"

 Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday accused rival Donald Trump of wanting “unchecked power” in response to comments by John Kelly, the former president’s onetime chief of staff, that Trump fits “into the general definition of fascist” and wanted the “kind of generals Hitler had.”

“We know what Donald Trump wants. He wants unchecked power. The question in 13 days will be what do the American people want,” Harris said at the Naval Observatory in Washington.

Harris said Kelly’s remarks offered a “window into who Donald Trump really is from the people who know him best,” while also calling it “deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler.”

Kelly, the retired Marine general who served as Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, spoke about his onetime boss in a series of interviews published Tuesday. He also told The New York Times that Trump “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”

Kelly confirmed to The Atlantic that Trump had said he wished his military personnel showed him the same deference Hitler’s Nazi generals showed the German dictator during World War II. Kelly also told The Times that Trump had praised Hitler: “He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too.’”

Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement Tuesday that Kelly had “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.”

Democrats have quickly seized on Kelly’s comments as warnings continue to pour out from former Trump White House aides about how the former president views the office and how he would exercise power if elected again.

Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, said Tuesday night at a rally in Wisconsin that the reported comments about Hitler’s generals “makes me sick as hell.”