Harris praises John Kelly for sending emergency call to US about Trump's fitness for office | Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris praised Donald Trump's former chief of staff for sending a “911 call” to the nation in which he expressed the former president's inability to serve a second term and called her opponent a “fascist.” would push the nation down a dangerous path.

Harris took part in a CNN town hall with undecided voters in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, as the battleground state appears poised to play a potentially pivotal role in the presidential race. As Harris answered voters' questions on everything from the cost of living to access to abortion, he repeatedly steered the conversation toward questions about Trump's fitness for office.

The town hall came a day after the Atlantic published an article detailing reports from former Trump advisers in which the then-president had expressed a desire for “the kind of generals Hitler had.” The article quoted Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly, who described the former president's consistent behavior in humiliating military personnel. The Trump campaign has denied these reports.

“I believe that Donald Trump is unstable, increasingly unstable and unfit for service,” Harris told CNN host Anderson Cooper at the town hall. “The people who know Donald Trump best, the people who worked with him in the White House … they have explicitly said that he has disrespected the Constitution of the United States. They said he should never be president of the United States again.”

Harris predicted that if Trump were elected to a second term, he would not have advisers like Kelly who could help rein in the former president's behavior in office.

“(Kelly) is calling 911 to the American people right now,” Harris said. “And this time we have to take it very seriously: the people who knew him best and were career people will not be there to hold him back.”

When specifically asked by Cooper whether she thought Trump was a fascist, Harris replied: “Yes, I do.”

While Harris criticized Trump's character and platform, he sometimes sidestepped difficult political questions from Cooper and viewers. In one of her most substantive answers of the night, Harris said she believes Democrats need to “take a look at the filibuster” to expand abortion access in the country.

Democrats have pledged to reinstate Roe v. Wade if they win the White House and regain full control of Congress. However, such a proposal could be blocked by the Senate's filibuster rule, which requires the support of at least 60 of the chamber's 100 members to advance bills. The filibuster has become a fundamental obstacle to implementing much of Joe Biden's legislative agenda and could pose further challenges if Harris wins the presidency.

While Harris' openness to changing the filibuster may resonate with the Democratic base, some of her other answers may fall short of the progressives she needs on Election Day. Harris reiterated her opposition to a fracking ban and gave a somewhat unclear answer about ending the war in Gaza.

Voter Annalize Kean asked Harris: “What would you do to ensure that no more Palestinians die from bombs funded with U.S. taxpayer dollars?”

Harris responded: “Far too many innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed.” It's incomprehensible, and we're now at a point where with (Yahya Sinwar's) death, I think we have a chance to end this war, the hostages “To bring home, bring relief to the Palestinian people and work toward a two-state solution.”

Although much of the town hall focused on criticism of Trump and political issues, the discussion occasionally turned toward the personal. Harris spoke about the role of religion in her life, noting that she prays every day and spoke to her pastor the day Biden withdrew from the presidential campaign.

Toward the end of the town hall, Anderson asked Harris about her experience grieving the loss of her mother, who died of cancer 15 years ago.

“You don’t stop grieving,” Harris said. “It is important to remember them as they lived, not as they died.”

With less than two weeks to go before Election Day, Harris and Trump appear locked in a neck-and-neck race that will come down to a handful of battleground states, including Pennsylvania. In her closing address at the town hall, Harris returned to Trump's stability and pointed to his recent comments calling Democrats “the enemy from within” as evidence of his unfitness to serve.

“He'll sit there – unstable, unhinged, plotting his revenge, plotting his retaliation and making an enemies list,” Harris said. “My list will be a list of how I address and continue to address the issues you all are raising this afternoon and evening. It will be a to-do list of how we can impact the American people.”