Kamala Harris is taking an increasingly dark turn in the final days of the election campaign after starting her journey as the Democratic nominee focusing on joy and enthusiasm.
Focusing on the threat former President Donald Trump would pose to democracy if elected, Harris took part in a CNN town hall on Wednesday night, where she told the audience that Trump is “going to sit there unstable, unhinged, plotting his revenge, plotting his retribution, creating an enemies list.”
Harris confirmed that she sees Trump as a “fascist” after his former Chief of Staff John Kelly made similar comments to The New York Times. The vice president also slammed the former president after Kelly said Trump suggested that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler did some good things.
Earlier on Wednesday, Harris appeared outside the Naval Observatory, the vice president’s residency in northwest Washington, DC, arguing that the former president is “increasingly unhinged and unstable.”
“People like John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrail against his propensities and his actions” if Trump is allowed to return to the White House, she added.
That messaging is in stark contrast to what Harris presented during the early days of her campaign, after she took over the Democratic party nomination from Joe Biden.
“In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious,” Harris said when accepting the nomination in August.
But, she focused more on the next steps than her political rival.
“Our opponents in this race are out there, every day, denigrating America. Talking about how terrible everything is. Well, my mother had another lesson she used to teach,” Harris said.
“Never let anyone tell you who you are. You show them who you are.America, let us show each other—and the world—who we are. And what we stand for. Freedom. Opportunity. Compassion. Dignity. Fairness. And endless possibilities.”
Those speeches of hope and her plans for the future remain, even as she attacks Trump and his statements more.
The vice president has recently criticized her Republican opponent for suggesting that he would use the office of the president to get revenge on his political opponents and to silence critics.
During Wednesday’s town hall event, Harris said that would apply to reporters, judges and election officials.
“You can be sure, because he has said, he would weaponize the Department of Justice to go after his political enemies, that you can look at a Donald Trump in the White House after January 20, sitting in that Oval Office plotting his revenge,” Harris said on CNN. “He has talked about the enemies within.”
Trump has for years lambasted the press as “fake news” and the “enemy of the people.” Last week, he suggested that he may turn to the military to handle protests after the election. He spoke of the Democrats as the “enemy within.”
Appearing on Fox, Trump told host Maria Bartiromo, “We have two enemies.”
He added: “We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within. And the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia, and all these countries.”
Harris has been playing clips of Trump at her recent events, before scorching Trump for his rhetoric.
“He’s talking about the enemy within Pennsylvania,” she said in Erie. “He’s talking about that he considers anyone who doesn’t support him or who will not bend to his will an enemy of our country.”
In La Crosse, Wisconsin, last Thursday, she said the former president “will stop at nothing to claim unchecked power for himself,” according to USA Today.
Harris has argued that her darker rhetoric had become required because of Trump’s actions.
“He’s becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged, and it requires that response,” she said last weekend. “I think the American people are seeing it, witnessing it in real-time.”
On Friday last week, Harris told NBC that she’s still optimistic about the future and that that is “not in conflict with also being clear-eyed about the danger that Donald Trump poses, based on the language that he has used, and his admiration for dictators, his inability to really focus on the needs of the American people, in particular working people. These things are not in conflict, they all exist at the same time.”
