Vice President Kamala Harris blasted Donald Trump on Wednesday for his reported praise of Adolf Hitler and said the Republican presidential nominee "wants unchecked power."
Harris, the Democratic nominee, spoke at her residence in Washington, D.C., a day after reports of recent interviews with Trump's former White House chief of staff John Kelly, who recounted Trump's comments about the Nazi leader while Trump was president.
"It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of six million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans," Harris said.
"Yesterday, we learned that Donald Trump's former chief of staff, John Kelly, a retired four-star general, confirmed that while Donald Trump was president, he said he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler," she said.
"Donald Trump said that because he does not want a military that is loyal to the United States Constitution, he wants a military that is loyal to him."
Harris' statement came less than two weeks before the Nov. 5 presidential election, which she noted in issuing a warning about Trump. Millions of Americans already have cast ballots in the contest in states that allow early voting.
"Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable," Harris said.
"And in a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions. Those who once tried to stop him from pursuing his worst impulses would no longer be there and no longer be there to rein him in."
"So the bottom line is this: We know what Donald Trump wants. He wants unchecked power," she said. "The question in 13 days will be, what do the American people want?"
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung, in a statement, said, "Kamala Harris is a stone-cold loser who is increasingly desperate because she is flailing, and her campaign is in shambles. That is why she continues to peddle outright lies and falsehoods that are easily disproven."
Cheung also claimed that Harris' "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."
Kelly, who served as Trump's Homeland Security secretary before becoming White House chief of staff, told The New York Times that Trump met the definition of a fascist and that if elected for a second term Trump would govern like a dictator if not restrained.
"He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government," Kelly told the Times.
Kelly also said in an interview for the Jim Sciutto book "The Return of Great Powers" that Trump had once told him, "Well, but Hitler did some good things."
