The US vice president says the comments, which Trump denies, are a “window” into who the Republican candidate really is.

Washington, D.C. – As the United States election enters its final stages, Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign is amplifying damning comments from a former top White House official who served under Donald Trump, suggesting that the Republican nominee is a “fascist.”

In remarks published late Tuesday in The New York Times, Trump's senior White House chief of staff, Gen. John Kelly, said he had seen the former president speak positively about Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

“He said more than once, 'You know, Hitler did some good things, too,'” Kelly told the New York Times.

Kelly, a former Marine general, served as homeland security secretary in the early months of Trump's presidency in 2017 before becoming White House chief of staff – a position he held until 2019.

In a separate report, The Atlantic magazine, citing two unidentified sources, reported that Trump said at the White House that he needed “the kind of generals Hitler had.”

Harris said the reports were a “window into who Donald Trump really is.”

“Donald Trump has become increasingly unhinged and unstable,” she told reporters outside the White House on Wednesday, warning that officials like Kelly will not be there to “restrain” him during a second term.

She continued: “So the bottom line is: We know what Donald Trump wants; he wants uncontrolled power. The question in 13 days will be: What do the American people want?”

Earlier in the day, Harris' vice presidential running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, delivered a similar message, urging Americans to vote for Democrats against what he called “Trump's descent into madness.”

After an early vote, Walz told reporters that he appreciated Kelly's coming out at that moment. “I ask the American public to look at what he says and watch this decline,” he said.

On social media, Harris' campaign made several posts amplifying the claims made by Kelly and The Atlantic.

Trump's campaign has denied that the former president made the comments and accused Kelly of telling “debunked stories.”

During his tenure in the White House, Kelly defended some of Trump's most controversial policies, including the executive order that banned travelers from several Muslim-majority countries.

Civil rights groups argued at the time that the order was based on bigotry and an expansion of Trump's promise as a candidate to ban all Muslims from entering the country. But Kelly insisted the ban was legal and necessary for national security.

Fascist definition

In his recent comments to the New York Times, Kelly said Trump meets the definition of a fascist.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines fascism as a populist ideology “associated with a centralized autocratic government led by a dictatorial leader.”

It adds that fascism is “characterized by strict economic and social regulation and violent repression of opposition.”

Kelly also said that Trump “admires” authoritarian leaders and “prefers the dictatorial approach to government.”

Successive presidents of both major parties have had close relationships with autocratic governments and leaders around the world.

On Wednesday, Trump released a campaign ad proclaiming he was a patriot who “always fought for America.”