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Kamala Harris Responds to Reports of Trump Praising Hitler. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 23, 2024 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:00]

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (D) AND U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And vowed to use the military as his personal militia to carry out his personal and political vendettas.

Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable. 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. The question in 13 days will be, what do the American people want?

Thank you.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We have been listening to Vice President Kamala Harris speaking there from the vice president's residence at the Naval Observatory, essentially calling out Donald Trump, reiterating reporting that Trump's former Chief of Staff John Kelly told reporters that Trump invoked Hitler during conversations, saying that he wanted generals that were as loyal as Hitler's generals.

She went on to say that it is deeply troubling and dangerous that Trump would compare himself to Hitler, obviously, the former German leader responsible for millions of deaths, hundreds of thousands of American deaths, millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust.

She described Trump as unhinged and unstable and also added that in a second Trump administration, there would be no John Kellys around to restrain him from his worst instincts.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Yes, she's trying to say that he is increasingly unhinged and unstable and that what he wants is unchecked power.

She's trying to say, you have seen him before, but actually this is going to be a different thing if he is reelected.

Let's -- we have a sound bite. Let's listen to it.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) GEN. JOHN KELLY (RET.), FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Certainly,

the former president is in the far right area. He's certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators. He has said that.

So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.

He commented more than once that Hitler did some good things too.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KEILAR: And those are some of the comments that have created this moment that Harris is trying to capitalize here in this race.

Let's bring in our panel here to talk a little bit about this, Kristen Soltis Anderson, Karen Finney, and Jim Sciutto with us.

Kristen, what do you think about what you're seeing here, as Harris is trying to highlight this moment, which does sort of hew to the reporting that we have had at CNN, which is that she does want to do this? She wants to highlight where Donald Trump is having these moments that may be alarming to some voters.

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's clear that the strategy in the last week or two has been to pivot back to this messaging about Donald Trump as a threat to democracy.

And I suspect the reason for this is that they view very reliable Republican voters who are skeptical of Donald Trump maybe not as someone that they could convince to outright vote for Harris. But they can convince them, do you really want to go to sleep at night knowing you voted for Donald Trump?

And if they can plant that seed in the minds of enough of these Republicans who really don't like Trump, I think it's clear that that is a strategy they want to pursue. This reporting is obviously pretty serious, and it seems clear with her taking the bold step of saying, I'm going to do a press conference in the middle of the day, not taking questions, but I'm going to do a statement in the middle of the day, it's clear this is a message they want to drive home.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think there's actually a couple of other things too.

I was in Pennsylvania over the weekend, and women voters who I spoke to who had previously voted for Trump, what they said was, I just -- he keeps talking about revenge, and I'm worried, what about me? This is a woman who's concerned about Social Security recently diagnosed with cancer, so her health care is on her mind.

I don't hear him talking about me. I hear him talking about revenge, and my husband and I are worried about that.

So, I think part of it is also to say, if he's so focused on revenge, he's not going to be focused on you. So, voting for him is a risk. Is it a risk you're willing to take? And we think he's focused on -- he's not focused on you. He's focused on himself.

And so I think they're trying to do a couple of things, and, frankly, suppress votes of people who may not vote for her, but maybe they will just say, you know what, I'm just not going to vote this time and won't vote for him again.

SANCHEZ: Jim, in your most recent book, you actually published conversations you had with the former Chief of Staff John Kelly, in which he details this fascination that Trump has for Hitler.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, praise.

I mean, if there's a historical figure that you would think everyone could agree on you cannot say a kind word about, it would be Adolf Hitler, I expect, right?

[13:05:03]

So let me quote John Kelly's firsthand account, John Kelly, 40-year Marine general, rose from enlisted men to the highest rank, a four- star general, Gold Star father as well. Here is his firsthand account of Trump talking about Hitler.

"He said: 'Well, Hitler, he did some good things.' I said: 'Well, what?' And he said: 'Well, Hitler rebuilt the economy.' But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world. And I said: 'Sir, you could never say anything good about the guy, nothing. I mean, Mussolini was a great guy by comparison.'"

I should also note that Kelly recounted how he, much like Jeffrey Goldberg found in his "Atlantic" piece, also talked about how Nazi generals, Hitler's generals, were more loyal to him than American generals were to Trump.

Now, this is, again, his chief of staff recounting words he heard from Trump in his face directly.

The other point I would make about this is that the praise for Hitler is -- and the praise for strongman authoritarians around the world is not limited to him, because Trump has said and continues to say, by the way, not in private, but in public, kind and praising words about Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Viktor Orban, who have -- who are not just authoritarians, but have committed crimes against their own people, right, turned the state against their own people.

And, of course, he's saying those praising things as he's talking about an enemy within in this country. So the comments aren't just shocking. They're also consequential in that they give you a sense of how we might govern.

KEILAR: We want to keep this conversation going, but we do want to go to Alayna Treene, who is in Georgia, following Donald Trump, because there is some reaction from the Trump campaign.

Alayna, what are you hearing? ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: That's right. There is. We

have heard a number of Trump advisers and people like Mark Meadows, Kash Patel really heavily push back on this.

I'm going to read for you something that Steven Cheung, a top Trump campaign adviser, told me in response to some of this last night. He said -- quote -- "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."

So, clearly, they are pushing back very heavily on this. But I do want to take a step back, because I have covered Donald Trump for a number of years. I also was covering the White House when John Kelly was serving as Donald Trump's chief of staff. And I think it's important to add the context of who John Kelly is.

He served in the military also. I'd note that his son was killed, and he also served in the military. So this is something that is deeply personal to Kelly. I know that he is someone who very much takes the Constitution very seriously, and he took that role very seriously.

I think that's why when you listen to some of the recordings from "The New York Times." You heard him say that he had told Donald Trump in the past while they were in the White House that: "I don't serve you. I'm serving the Constitution."

So that's some of the context around this. But, also, I don't think we can overstate how big of a development this is coming just two weeks before the election. We know that it's not just Kelly among those who had served with Donald Trump when he was in office who have been kind of trying to raise alarm bells about what it would mean for him to be president once again.

We have also heard criticisms from Mark Milley, from Jim Mattis, from John Bolton, from Bill Barr, a lot of people who had served with him. And I think the timing of these comments is important because I think you're really seeing people in the 11th hour now say a lot of this publicly.

And to that point as well, Kelly, this isn't entirely surprising from him. He has been very critical of Donald Trump in the past. And I know privately he has made similar comments about what has been said, the conversations between the two of them.

I think the reason that he's taking it public now is clearly because he wants this to be seen in front of voters right before this November 5 election.

Now, look, when I talk to other Trump advisers about this, this is really -- that statement I just read is kind of all of what they are saying. They're pushing back on this. They're saying the generals who have served with him are those who have been criticizing Donald Trump over some of these comments that they argue are not true, they're saying this is because Donald Trump has since turned on them. And so that's what you're going to hear a lot of his advisers continue

to say. Now, as for Georgia today and whether or not Donald Trump will address this, I have a hard time believing that he's going to talk about this, either at his staff -- his first stop here in Georgia, which is in Zebulon, when he's meeting with faith leaders.

And then, later today, he's going to be doing a much larger rally hosted by Turning Point Action. But, again, I think I cannot overstate the importance of the timing of this and also to keep in mind where these are coming from, which is John Kelly -- Boris, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes. Alayna, thank you so much for that.

And just important to note, yes, these may be folks who are not in with Donald Trump anymore, but it just may mean they're not covering for him anymore, which is something that we saw during the Trump administration.

[13:10:06]

But also, just to the point -- just to the point of the folks in the Trump orbit, Jim, who are trying to back Trump up and saying that he didn't say this, you have Kash Patel and Mark Meadows. And these are two individuals who are incredibly conflicted when it comes to their fates, their financial fates and how linked they are to Trump on this.

These aren't independent arbiters.

SCIUTTO: Listen, one thing I will say about John Kelly, John Kelly has no desire, as a man who served in uniform, because he believes that men and women in uniform should not play a political role.

He resisted going public with this. I have had conversations with him face-to-face where I asked him, do you want to go on CNN and discuss this? he said: "That's not my place."

So him going public -- and that began as background comments. Ten they began -- then they went on-the-record comments in print. And now you have a recording out there -- is something he does not do lightly. He is not desperate to be on TV. He is not desperate to be the center of headlines, in fact, quite the opposite.

And then when you look at Steven Cheung and others -- and, by the way, I have gotten statements from Steven Cheung to the same degree when you come to him with firsthand accounts about Trump comments before. And it's a reflexive answer practically cut and pasted. So you have to place that statement against the reputations and credibility not just of John Kelly, but Mark Milley, Mark Esper, who served as his defense secretary, his vice president, who is not endorsing him, right, I mean, members of the Cabinet, et cetera.

So, listen, it's -- you and I can't decide for anybody who we believe. You can only say to folks who are watching right now, who do they find more credible?

SANCHEZ: We're actually going to be speaking to former Defense Secretary Esper later this afternoon, so stay tuned for that.

Right now, I want to get up to Eva McKend, who is live for us at the CNN town hall, the site of the CNN town hall that is expected later tonight with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Eva, you have been having conversations with folks on the campaign. Is this something that they saw themselves talking about just two weeks out from the election?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's certainly part of a broader argument, Boris, that the vice president has been making on the campaign trail, that the former president has been exhibiting behavior, especially over the last several weeks, in her view, that illustrates that he is unhinged, that he is unstable.

She's telling Americans, as she did today, do you want leader in the White House who would view the military as their personal militia? And the reason why she has been holding these country-over-party events in an appeal to conservative voters, Republican voters, is, they believe they have strength in this argument.

There are going to be voters that don't agree with her on every policy matter, but when it comes to this existential question and the future and the health of our democracy, the campaign very much believes they are in a strong position to make that argument. So that's why we saw the vice president almost engaging in a rapid response here talking about this in real time.

That being said, they know that Trump is not the only issue here. We expect her tonight at the town hall to lean heavily into her personal biography in an attempt to humanize herself, connect on a human level to the undecided and persuadable voters that will be asking her questions in this town hall tonight, as well as make an affirmative case for herself as she outlines her policy vision for America, which she describes as an opportunity economy.

But, yes, calling out the former president, sounding the alarm bell is also part of the campaign argument as well -- Boris, Brianna.

SANCHEZ: Eva McKend live for us in Pennsylvania.

You will want to tune in for that town hall later tonight as well. It starts at 9:00 p.m.

Karen, over to you.

It strikes me that the strategy here is partly try to persuade some Republicans for Democrats, partly try to have them see that maybe staying home is a better option. But how many of those folks are actually still out there? Because, over the last 12 months, we have seen so many Republicans, even those that criticize Donald Trump on January 6, that came out with all sorts of public statements against him come home, not just to the party, but to Trump himself.

FINNEY: You know, there -- I talked to a couple of them actually this weekend, but they come in different categories. Some are just genuinely agonizing over, does it even matter if I vote?

Am I even going to bother? And some are deciding, is it -- gosh, I don't -- there's things I don't know about her. They have concerns about him. And, again, it's particularly with younger voters, same thing. They know -- we always say to them, this is your future. And they know that.

But they also, again, feel like they have voted in the past, perhaps, and things didn't change enough.

I will tell you one thing I think she has to do tonight, though. This conversation that we're having is really an elite media conversation, and it is for a certain level of voters. It's got to be brought down to the grassroots, to the people who live where she's going to be speaking.

[13:15:05]

And that is to say, not only did he treat the military this way when he was in office. He's currently actively trying to disenfranchise members of our military serving overseas. That's your sons and daughters that are serving. That may be your sons and daughters who sacrifice their lives for our country and for our values.

She's got to keep bringing some of these issues back down to, this is how it affects you right here, right now, today and how your life will change if I'm president or won't change if he is.

KEILAR: With the voting challenges to the uniformed and overseas, you mean?

FINNEY: Yes, absolutely, and the challenges that they have had there with the voting by mail.

KEILAR: Yes, it's still up in the air in Pennsylvania. And we will see if it continues in other states, the challenges.

What are you looking for tonight, Kristen?

SOLTIS ANDERSON: So I think the big question that she has yet to answer is, what are your core values?

She has put out policy ideas, bullet point lists, I'm going to do this on homebuyer tax credit, I'm going to do this on childcare. And she's told us before about her bio. She's going to start a sentence tonight, I grew up in a middle-class family. Like, put that on your bingo card. That's going to be there.

But what I think voters are still wondering about, to the extent anybody still has these questions, is, there was 2019-2020 Kamala Harris, and now there's Liz Cheney's my best friend, I own a gun Kamala Harris,.

Where on that spectrum is her core? Who on the inside -- when she says, my values have not changed, what are those values? I think that is still the question mark that she has not yet -- she still hasn't filled that in yet. And I think that's what she will have to do tonight.

SANCHEZ: And, Jim, when it comes to her point about a second Trump administration and potentially who would serve and who might be the guardrails, if any, what have you heard about a potential Trump -- second-term Trump Cabinet?

SCIUTTO: Well, listen, that category of Republican -- and, by the way, not all Republicans, right? Some are members of the military service who serve both administrations like a Mark Milley, et cetera. We don't know exactly what their party registration is.

Regardless, that category of person is very unlikely to be serving in a Trump administration, in part because they don't want to, and in part because Trump doesn't want them to, right, that Trump wants to have, and he said it explicitly, more loyalists who are going to be willing to carry out an agenda that goes further than what we saw in the first term.

So when you speak of guardrails, unlikely that they or many of them will be present. And, by the way, that's not just -- we're not just imagining that that took place in the first Trump term. I have reported about it. Our colleagues have reported about it, times when Trump wanted to do X and they pulled him back. I will just give you an example.

Trump, by accounts in my book and others have had this as well, wanted to pull out of NATO at the summit in 2018. And it was Kelly and Bolton who pulled him back. And, by the way, he wanted to pull out because he felt like he wasn't treated well by the other NATO leaders at the time. There was not a grand strategic conversation about how we have got to realign ourselves towards whatever.

It was, he was angry and he's, like, I'm leaving. And Bolton and Kelly in the moment were able to pull him out of that. So, if you imagine decision-making like that without those guardrails, there might very well be consequences.

SANCHEZ: A very transactional track record of Donald Trump making decisions based on the personal versus what might be good for the country.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Jim, Kristen, Karen, appreciate you all. Thanks for joining us for the conversation.

And, of course, be sure to tune in tonight as Anderson Cooper moderates a CNN presidential town hall with Vice President Kamala Harris. Again, it starts at 9:00 p.m. right here on CNN.

NEWS CENTRAL returns after a quick break.

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[13:23:03] SANCHEZ: Just moments ago, Vice President Kamala Harris responded to reports that former President Donald Trump praised Adolf Hitler during his time in office.

Trump's own former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly telling "The Atlantic," Trump said that he needed -- quote -- "the kind of generals that Hitler had."

Kelly also told "The New York Times" that he'd heard Trump praise the Nazi leader more than once, claiming that Trump said -- quote -- "Hitler did some good things too."

Here's a bit of Vice President Harris' remarks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: This is a window into who Donald Trump really is from the people who know him best, from the people who worked with him side by side in the Oval Office and in the Situation Room.

Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable. And in a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Joining us now to discuss is Mark Esper, who served as defense secretary under President Trump. Secretary Esper serves on the board or as a strategic adviser for a handful of aerospace and defense-related companies.

Secretary, thank you so much for being with us.

First, do you have any reason to doubt General Kelly's remarks?

MARK ESPER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Oh, not at all, Boris. Of course, we have heard these stories before.

And so what's new is that John Kelly came out and has spoken to the press about it and he's on record, right? We have audio recordings of his answers. So, look, I -- John Kelly as a man of great integrity and character, and he served this nation well in uniform for decades and then, of course, out of uniform. And I have never had any reason whatsoever to doubt his honesty or integrity.

SANCHEZ: Were there ever any incidents, Secretary, that you have not previously spoken about in which you heard Donald Trump use similar language or refer to American military personnel in a derogatory fashion?

[13:25:05]

ESPER: No, not along the lines that John Kelly and others have outlined.

Of he -- course, the incidents I recall is that he was very troubled by the fact that we would have America's wounded warriors out in public. And he did not like that. And I had a couple of instances where we'd have to have that discussion. And he would -- he just thought we should conceal them.

And our view was, my view, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was that these were Americas heroes and it was important to show the American people and their colleagues, by the way, in the service that, when our heroes come home wounded, that we take care of them and that we will be with them all the time, and they weren't something to hide in the closet, but, in many ways, something to hoist up and to celebrate as, again, people who served our country, who gave all for our nation.

SANCHEZ: Chief of Staff Kelly also said that he believed that Donald Trump fell under the definition of a fascist. Do you also consider Donald Trump to be a fascist?

ESPER: You know, I have spoken out against lowering the civil discourse in this country and personal attacks and labels and stuff like that.

So, look, I'm not going to get into that type of labeling, if you will. But John Kelly did something. And he looked it up in a dictionary. And if you look it up, I think everybody should, ask yourself, does he fall into those categories? And it's hard to say that he doesn't when you kind of look at those terms.

But he certainly has those inclinations. And I think it's something we should be worried about.

SANCHEZ: And, Secretary, when you hear Trump reportedly say that he wants generals who are totally loyal to him, even above the Constitution, what could that mean if he's reelected?

Are there any potential checks and balances to prevent him from, say, going after some of his political rivals using the military?

ESPER: Well, the first check should be that the military and civilians alike who serve in government swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a president, not to a party, not to political philosophy.

It's why the memoir I wrote two years ago now is entitled "A Sacred Oath." And I think nobody lives at or understands it as well as the military, who is it's trained in our schools or academies, our ROTC programs. You're constantly reminded of it while you're on duty. It's reinforced multiple times.

So, look, I fully believe that the uniformed officers will live up to that oath to obey the Constitution and will not be will -- will not swear a loyalty oath to the president of the United States. And so my concern, of course, is to the institution, what will happen.

That was my concern during my tenure and, of course, in the summer of 2020, when he wanted to use the active-duty military, considered using the active-duty military to put down the protests and possibly even shoot protesters. And so my concern was about the institution of the military and then, maybe even more importantly, along those same line lines, the importance of the civil-military relationship in this country.

It's very unique. On one hand, the military is completely subordinate to civilian authority. But, on the other hand, we serve the American people. Our oath is to the Constitution, but we serve the American people. And what you don't want to do is break down those bonds of trust that have been there for decades and decades.

We saw that happen after the Vietnam War. We saw that happen after the killings at Kent State, if you recall. The National Guard opened fire on civilian protesters. We don't want to go back to that. The last institution, it seems, it has anything greater than a 50 percent legitimacy rate among the American people right now is the U.S. military, and we need to preserve that no matter what.

SANCHEZ: Secretary Mark Esper, appreciate you sharing your perspective and joining us this afternoon.

ESPER: Thanks, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Still to come this hour on CNN NEWS CENTRAL: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says they're seeing evidence that North Korean troops are being deployed to Russia. What it could mean for the war in Ukraine -- when we come back.

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