From “joyful” to “fascist” — Why Kamala Harris adopted Biden’s playbook for denigrating Trump

Vice President Kamala Harris stood outside the vice president's residence in Washington, DC and launched a blistering attack on former President Trump, her rival in the 2024 race for the White House.

Harris accused the former president of becoming “increasingly unhinged and unstable” as she pointed to critical comments made by retired Gen. John Kelly, Trump's former White House chief of staff, in an interview with The New York Times.

The vice president argued that Trump was a “fascist” as she noted Kelly's claims that the then-president had repeatedly expressed his admiration for Nazi Germany dictator Adolf Hitler.

Hours later, Wednesday night at a CNN town hall in battleground Pennsylvania, Harris doubled down on her accusations.

New national poll shows whether Harris or Trump will be ahead in the final stretch

On October 23, 2024, at the Vice President's Residence at the US Naval Observatory, Kamala Harris spoke about former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly's recent comments about former President Donald Trump, including that he fit and wanted to “fit the general definition of fascism.” the “kind of generals Hitler had.” (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Asked if she believed the Republican presidential nominee was a fascist, the vice president replied: “Yes, I think so.”

And she stressed that American voters “care about our democracy and that there is no president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.”

Trump, who has vehemently denied Kelly's allegations, used social media to hit back at Harris, arguing that her criticism was a sign that she was losing the election.

The former president claimed that Harris “increasingly escalated her rhetoric, going so far as to call me Adolf Hitler and anything else that came to mind.”

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If Harris' criticism that Trump is “unfit to serve in the Oval Office” sounds familiar, there's a good reason for that – it's true.

As he ran for re-election, President Biden made his argument that Trump posed an existential threat to democracy the centerpiece of his presidential campaign.

During a speech in January, Biden highlighted what he called the former president's “assault on democracy” – referencing the attack by Trump supporters on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, aimed at overturning the confirmation of Congress over Biden's election victory in 2020 to revoke from the election year.

President Biden (right) and first lady Jill Biden leave the stage after speaking at a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, Friday, June 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

As he ran for another four years in the White House, the president repeatedly argued that Trump was “a threat to democracy.”

But after the embattled Biden abandoned his re-election bid in July and endorsed Harris to replace him as the 2024 Democratic nominee, the vice president and her advisers appeared to have discarded the Biden playbook on Trump.

Instead, “joyful warrior” Harris expressed a more optimistic message, and as she focused on Trump, she noted his petty complaints and called him a “rogue man,” as she argued during her speech at the Democratic National Convention in late August.

But as the calendar shifted from summer to fall and Election Day approached, there appeared to be a change in tone from the vice president and her campaign in a race to margin of error in which many polls suggest the momentum is in Trump's favor .

“Donald Trump will become increasingly unstable and unhinged and will stop at nothing to claim unchecked power,” Harris charged last week during several campaign rallies in battleground Wisconsin.

According to a senior campaign official, Harris will deliver a speech described as a key “closing statement” next Tuesday – a week before Election Day – at the Ellipse Square, located south of the White House and north of the National Mall.

In this Jan. 6, 2021, photo with the White House in the background, President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Washington ahead of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

The campaign highlighted that Trump led a large rally of supporters at the Ellipse Building on January 6, 2021. Many of those who attended Trump's rally then marched on the US capital and stormed the building along with other demonstrators. The campaign sees the Ellipse as a symbolic location that it says will help make clear to voters the choice in the presidential election.

The contrast with the former president that Harris is trying to sketch comes as she and her campaign make a major court press to lure disaffected Republicans who supported Trump rival Nikki Haley in the GOP presidential primary earlier this year.

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As Trump continues to wield massive influence over the Republican Party, even a small portion of GOP voters voting for Harris could make a difference in some battleground states, in a race likely to be decided on the margins.

Harris has joined forces with senior anti-Trump Republicans in key battleground states in recent weeks, including former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris listens as former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney speaks during a town hall at People's Light in Malvern, Pennsylvania, Monday, Oct. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

A Democratic strategist in Biden's political circle told Fox News that the change in Harris' message was a sign that the president was right to repeatedly target Trump during the campaign as an existential threat to democracy.

The Trump campaign argues that the new messaging will backfire with voters.

“Kamala Harris is focused on Donald Trump and President Donald J. Trump is focused on the American people,” Trump campaign adviser Danielle Alvarez argued Thursday on “Fox and Friends.” “Our closing argument is so different than theirs. They’re throwing everything they can at the wall to see what sticks because Kamala Harris is faltering.”

Longtime vocal GOP Trump critic Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire – who has been a top supporter of Haley and a surrogate in the Republican nomination fight but says he will vote for Trump – said the attacks were not successful in turning out voters .

“You’re dealing with a person who is constantly making outrageous statements,” Sununu said of Trump during an interview on Fox News’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” “They’re burned into the noise.”

Sununu argued that “the reason the Harris campaign is completely frozen and has lost all momentum is because all they talk about is crazy things Trump says and does.”

Longtime Republican strategist Colin Reed, a veteran of several presidential campaigns, agreed.

“Voters have been hearing versions of this overheated rhetoric for almost a decade and are starting to tune it out as background noise,” he told Fox News Digital.

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Reed also noted that the new criticism comes after Trump survived two attempts on his life this summer, and that many of the former president's allies blame rhetoric from some Democrats for fueling the toxic political climate.

“It's particularly ironic coming from the Biden-Harris administration, which was founded on an idea of ​​unity, and is now demonizing someone who has faced multiple assassination attempts,” noted Reed, who criticized former Gov. Chris Christie, a vocal Trump critic supported cycle.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show on Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania, two and a half months after he survived an attempt on his life at the same location. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinso)

But Reed said: “The bigger challenge is that life was easier under the previous presidency than under the current one. Prices were lower, the border was safer, and 'inflation' was an esoteric term from economics class rather than an everyday problem.” The Harris campaign has failed to lay out its vision and positive plans to address these problems, leaving them with no other The only choice is to focus solely on the negative aspects surrounding Trump and hope for the best.”

He called it “a risky bet when voters are looking for concrete solutions to real problems.”

Even some Democrats have problems with the new message.

“I worry that the message of threat to democracy rings hollow with the majority of voters who are much more focused on improving their personal situation and wanting to vote for someone who will make their lives more affordable,” the veteran Democrat said Strategist and communicator Chris Moyer Fox News Digital.

Moyer said: “If I were the Harris campaign, I would continue to get the message out through Election Day about what Harris is going to do for these voters to lower costs and help them get ahead. That way she will speak to the top.” Voters who have the luxury of worrying about the broader concern about the fate of democracy have most likely already voted for Harris.

Get the latest updates on the 2024 election, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital Election Center.