Kamala Harris calls Trump a ‘fascist’ at Delaware County town hall, flounders on question about Biden

Vice President Kamala Harris said she thinks former President Donald Trump is a fascist during a CNN town hall in Aston, Delaware County, Wednesday night.

That came following the New York Times’ publication of damning statements by John Kelly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff, including that the former president meets the definition of a fascist.

Asked by moderator Anderson Cooper whether she thinks Trump is a fascist, Harris said, “Yes I do.”

She would go on to use the term later in the 75-minute town hall and repeatedly pivoted to the unique danger posed by Trump when fielding questions on a variety of topics.

“I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted,” she said.

The event came as Harris and Trump are ramping up their outreach to the Philadelphia suburbs in the last few weeks before the election.

Recent polls show the candidates are in a dead heat in Pennsylvania, and Harris’ town hall was her most recent attempt to extend a hand to swing voters in the suburbs.

Harris fielded questions from Cooper and undecided voters in the audience of 32 people. It marked her third trip to the crucial collar counties in just seven days.

Ahead of the CNN event about 20 miles southwest of Center City, Harris visited Famous 4th Street Deli in Queen Village with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker. Harris will return to Philly on Sunday.

During the town hall, Harris emphasized her campaign’s stance that reelecting Trump would be a threat to national security, citing the words of numbers of officials from Trump’s former administration.

“I do believe that Donald Trump is unstable, increasingly unstable, and unfit to serve,” Harris said.

Harris promoted her economic plan, reiterated her support for abortion rights, and walked a careful line when asked about Israel’s war in Gaza, an issue that has deeply divided her party.

Harris said Trump admires dictators, and has said he would be a dictator for a day if he’s reelected. She called Kelly’s warnings about Trump ahead of the election “a 911 call to the American people.”

In an interview with the New York Times, Kelly said the former president meets the definition of a fascist and claimed that Trump had spoken admiringly about Adolf Hitler. “He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government,” Kelly told The Times.

Harris referenced Kelly’s words throughout the town hall, calling on viewers to “go online and listen to John Kelly — his voice — talking about what he thinks of Donald Trump two weeks before the election.”

Later, while answering a question about antisemitism, Harris pointed to a report in The Atlantic that Trump, while president, had privately said he wanted generals like the ones Hitler had — a claim that has been disputed by the Trump campaign.

“This time, we must take very seriously those folks who knew him best and are career people who are not going to be there to hold him back,” Harris said Wednesday night at the town hall.

Harris was asked about her strategy for bringing down the price of groceries, which she said are “still too high,” and discussed her proposal not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year.

As California attorney general, Harris said, she took on price gouging, and she would again use that strategy as president via a national ban on the practice. She glossed over her housing plan and blamed corporations for artificially inflating rent prices.

On taxes, Harris said Trump’s corporate tax cuts “added trillions of dollars” to the federal deficit. She emphasized her own plan would reduce taxes for 100 million Americans and benefit small businesses.

“I come from the middle class, and I believe that the middle class needs tax breaks to be able to actually not just get by, but get ahead,” Harris said.

She floundered, though, when asked by an undecided voter how her administration will be different than President Joe Biden’s.

“I represent a new generation of leadership on a number of issues,” she said, then differentiated her own career experience, before telling a truncated version of the story of her upbringing.

Trump campaign’s reposted the clip on X, saying Harris couldn’t explain how she’ll be different from Biden.

Harris repeated the idea that she believes Israel’s war in Gaza can be brought to an end and Israeli hostages brought home when answering a question about Palestinian casualties.

“Far too many innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed,” Harris said.

She said she believes especially that “we have an opportunity to end this war” in light of the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar earlier in October.

The war has deeply divided Harris’ party as shown by the cease-fire protest that took place outside the Philadelphia Democratic Party’s headquarters ahead of Harris’ town hall.

Harris repeated a stance she expressed at the Democratic National Convention in August, saying that she advocates for a two-state solution where “the Palestinian people have dignity, self-determination and the safety they so rightly deserve.”

In response to another audience member’s question about antisemitism on college campuses, Harris said people need to learn more about “the tropes” and “the roots of what we are seeing.”

“We need to have laws in place, so that those who commit crime on behalf of antisemitism and hate, that they have a serious consequence,” Harris said.

Staff writer Rob Tornoe contributed to this article.