Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris once again campaigned in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, visiting a Philadelphia deli before attending a town hall event in Delaware County in which she called her Republican opponent Donald Trump a "fascist."
Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania
Kamala Harris visits Famous 4th Street Deli
Harris first stopped at Famous 4th Street Delicatessen on 700 South 4th Street Wednesday afternoon for a volunteer appreciation event.
Get top local stories in Philly delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC Philadelphia's News Headlines newsletter.
Harris took photos with attendees, kitchen staff and the owners of the deli before giving a speech to the crowd.
“What an extraordinary experience for us all — staff and patrons — here at Famous 4th Street Delicatessen to have Vice President Kamala Harris pay us a visit and spend some time interacting with each and every one of us,” the deli's owner, Al Gamble, said. “We’re honored to continue the tradition of welcoming in politicians and elected officials annually around Election Day, and we feel it truly showcases our mission of bringing everyone together.”
CNN town hall event in Delaware County
Harris then attended a CNN town hall event in Aston, Pennsylvania, Wednesday night. During the event -- hosted by CNN's Anderson Cooper -- Harris called former President Donald Trump a "fascist." Her comments echoed statements made by Trump's former chief of staff.
John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general who was Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, came forward this week to warn that his former boss meets “the general definition of a fascist." And he said that in private conversations, Trump admired dictators and said he wished he had military generals as loyal as Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's.
Harris said Kelly’s comments, coming just two weeks before the election, are “a 911 call to the American people.”
“We must take very seriously those folks who knew him best,” she continued, referring to the numerous former Trump advisers who have broken with him and warned the public that he should not be trusted with power again.
“Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?” host Anderson Cooper asked Harris.
“Yes, I do. Yes, I do,” she replied.
Later, she used the word herself to refer to Trump for the first time in public, saying voters care about “not having a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.”
“I believe that Donald Trump is dangerous,” she continued. “As the president of the United States, the commander in chief, he’s saying to his generals, in essence, why can’t you be more like Hitler’s generals? Come on!”
Trump posted to X and Truth Social moments after the town hall ended, arguing that Harris "sees that she is losing," so she "is increasingly raising her rhetoric, going so far as to call me Adolf Hitler, and anything else that comes to her warped mind."
Harris did not call Trump "Hitler" but rather said the American people "deserve to have a president who encourages healthy debate, works across the aisle, [is] not afraid of good ideas, wherever they come from, but also maintains certain standards about how we think about the role and the responsibility and certainly not comparing oneself in a clearly admiring way to Hitler,” in reference to Trump's reported comments about Hitler.
In his social media post, Trump did not directly respond to Harris' calling him a "fascist."
Harris also addressed the topics of abortion and religion during the event.
There were lighthearted moments during the town hall as well. A Temple University student gave Harris a Philadelphia welcome by telling her, “Go Birds,” before introducing himself and asking his question.
The focus on Pennsylvania
Wednesday's visit was Harris' second stop this week in Pennsylvania. On Monday, Oct. 21, Harris was joined by Liz Cheney at a campaign event in Malvern. Cheney -- a Republican and former Wyoming congresswoman -- has vocally opposed Trump since the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. During Monday’s event, Harris and Cheney made a bipartisan appeal to Republican voters and accused Trump of “using the power of the presidency to demean and to divide us.”
“People around the world are watching,” Harris said on Monday. “And sometimes I do fret a bit about whether we as Americans truly understand how important we are to the world.”
Cheney said her background as a conservative means she prioritizes the Constitution over her political party, and she was concerned about allowing a “totally erratic, completely unstable” Trump to run foreign policy.
“Our adversaries know that they can play Donald Trump," she said. "And we cannot afford to take that risk.”
PA Team Trump spokesman Kush Desai sent NBC10 a statement in response to Monday’s event.
“Showing off irrelevant former ‘Republicans’ of the past at campaign events doesn’t change the fact that Kamala Harris is running to extend her record of unlimited illegal immigration, rising prices, and endless wars abroad by another four years. Another incompetent Harris administration is the last thing Pennsylvanians want or need, regardless of Liz Cheney’s opinions,” Desai wrote.
Pennsylvania is a key battleground state that’s expected to play a pivotal role in the outcome of the 2024 election race which is currently a dead heat between Harris and Trump, according to recent polling.
Trump has also focused heavily on Pennsylvania, holding multiple campaign events in the keystone state, including an appearance at a McDonald’s restaurant in Feasterville on Sunday in which he worked behind the counter and served up French fries. The appearance was designed to troll Harris, who has talked about working at one of the fast food chain’s restaurants in Alameda, California, back in 1983 when she was a student at Howard University.
Without evidence, Trump has accused Harris of lying about the experience as a way to improve her working-class credibility. Trump repeated his claims on Sunday.
“It was a big part of her resume that she worked at McDonald’s — how tough a job it was,” Trump said. “She … made the french fries, and she talked about the heat: ‘It was so tough.’ She’s never worked at McDonald’s.”
Harris spokesperson Ian Sams responded to Trump in a statement that was sent to NBC News.
“When Trump feels desperate, all he knows how to do is lie,” Sams said. “He can’t understand what it’s like to have a summer job because he was handed millions on a silver platter, only to blow it.”
Former President Barack Obama and music legend Bruce Springsteen are also scheduled to appear in Philadelphia on Monday, Oct. 28, for a campaign rally in support of Harris.
Sign up for our Breaking newsletter to get the most urgent news stories in your inbox.
