Donald Trump told supporters on Monday that he is “not a Nazi,” using a rally in the final week of a bitter race for the White House to refute accusations of authoritarianism, including accusations from a former top aide who called him a fascist.
As he and his rival, Kamala Harris, the current vice president, enter the final stretch of one of the closest US elections in modern times, each candidate and his team have ratcheted up the political rhetoric, reigniting an already tense campaign.
Democrat Harris, who has accused Trump of stoking divisions, toured Michigan on Monday while the Republican visited Georgia, another crucial swing state, where he said his critics accused him of being a modern-day “Hitler.”
“The latest statement from Kamala and her campaign is that everyone who doesn’t vote for her is a Nazi,” Trump told a raucous crowd in Atlanta.
“I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi.”
The comments come a day after Trump held a large rally at New York’s famous Madison Square Garden, which was widely condemned for racist remarks made by his allies during the event.
It also follows the recent post of A New York Times In an interview in which Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, said the Republican fit the definition of a fascist — something Harris said she agreed with last week.
Kelly also said that Trump said that “Hitler did some good things, too” and that he “wanted generals like Adolf Hitler.”
“Dividing our country”
Tensions are rising in a race that polls indicate is too close, fueled by fears that former President Trump may again refuse to concede defeat, as he did in 2020, and by his harsh rhetoric threatening immigrants and political opponents.
On Monday, a fire reportedly consumed hundreds of early ballots cast in a supposedly secure drop box in a competitive district in northwest Washington state.
Another ballot box was damaged hours earlier in Portland, Oregon, where police said in a statement that the “act of arson” was intended to “influence the electoral process.”
Trump faced renewed anger after a speaker at his Sunday rally in New York described the US territory of Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.”
Harris, who is aiming to become the country’s first female president, criticized “that nonsense last night in Madison Square Garden” while speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One on Monday.
“He is focused and actually focused on his own grievances, on himself, on dividing our country. This is in no way something that will strengthen the American family, the American worker.”
Later in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at a rally with her colleague Tim Walz and a crowd of about 20,000 people, she described how “so much was at stake” on November 5.
“Donald Trump is more and more unstable, and now he wants unfettered power.”
His campaign said Puerto Rico’s comments “do not reflect the views of President Trump.”
Islanders cannot vote in the presidential election, but those within the United States — which includes about 450,000 Puerto Ricans in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania — can.
One of Harris’ top representatives, former President Barack Obama, was in Philadelphia on Monday to rally her supporters — and to attack Trump’s allies for “coddling and spreading the most racist, sexist and bigoted stereotypes.”
He also appealed to voters in Pennsylvania with Puerto Rican ties, saying, “If someone doesn’t see you as citizens with equal demands for opportunity, the pursuit of happiness, and the American dream, then you shouldn’t vote for him.”
‘disgusting’
Trump used Sunday’s event – which Democrats likened to the infamous 1939 march of American fascists at the same venue – to attack familiar subjects including illegal immigrants and domestic opponents whom he once again described as the “enemy within.”
In Atlanta, he repeated his attacks on Harris, calling her a “hater” and saying that former First Lady Michelle Obama was “bad” for criticizing him.
More than 47 million Americans have already cast ballots in early voting — including outgoing President Joe Biden, who voted Monday near his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.
Over time, the challenge for Harris and Trump will be to energize core supporters and appeal to the small number of persuadable voters who may still tip the scales — especially in the seven swing states where polls suggest they will be closely contested. .
On Tuesday, Harris will deliver what her campaign calls her “closing argument” from the same spot near the White House where then-President Trump roused his supporters on January 6, 2021, to launch a violent attack on the US Capitol.