In a contentious interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, vice presidential nominee JD Vance minimized former Trump officials’ warnings about fascism as mere policy differences.
“It’s about policy, it’s not about personality,” Vance said on “State of the Union” in response to Donald Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly warning that the former president had fascist tendencies.
“I know John Kelly’s worldview and I know the people who have attacked Donald Trump, the most vociferously on foreign policy. They’ll say, well, he’s a dictator when what they really mean is they won’t listen,” Vance said. “Donald Trump would not listen to the leadership of the military when they wanted him to start ridiculous conflicts that is a consistent theme.”
But Tapper noted that Kelly has said he actually agrees with Donald Trump on most issues — and questioned Vance on where he was getting an idea that John Kelly is “pro-war” when he has not given any public indication that he wanted to go to war in Iran or Afghanistan.
Former officials who served under the Trump administration have spoken out against the former president, describing him as a threat to democracy and a national security threat as president. Most recently, former chief of staff John Kelly, a retired four-start general, in an interview with the New York Times and The Atlantic described Trump’s authoritarian tendencies and recounted Trump praising Hitler at one point. Vance has said he does not believe these stories are true. Other notable figures who have spoken along these lines include Mark Milley, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump; Jim Mattis, former secretary of Defense under Trump; former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.
“I don’t buy that because if you actually look at John Kelly, at folks like Liz Cheney, the fundamental disagreement they have with Donald Trump is even though they say that they’re conservative,” Vance said. “They’re conservative in the sense that they want America to get involved in a ton of ridiculous military conflicts.”
It’s a similar argument Vance has made in regards to former Vice President Mike Pence, who Vance claims no longer supports Trump because of foreign policy differences, and not the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 where rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence.”
Vance also said he was “highly skeptical” that Kelly’s interviews were not in coordination with the Harris campaign — something he suggested during a rally earlier this week. When asked about what evidence he had for this, Vance said to Tapper: “You know the way that these attacks work. You know the way that these people are often vetted.”
“So you made it up?” Tapper asked Vance. The Ohio senator responded: “No, I said that the American media and the American Democratic Party apparatus works a certain way.”
Vance also reiterated his claims that these people are “disgruntled former employees,” something he has described Kelly and other former Trump officials who have spoken out against Trump.
“They didn’t think he was unfit for office until they had a falling out with him because he fired them,” Vance said in response. Tapper noted that many of these people — such as Pence and Milley — were not fired.
Kelly’s interviews this week came after recent comments from Trump, where he said the military should be deployed against “the enemy from within.” The former president has repeatedly said “the enemies from within” are a bigger threat than foreign adversaries and used Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi as examples of the “enemy from within.”
Vance pushed back on these comments — sparring with Tapper over what Trump actually said — and said Tapper was taking Trump’s words out of context.
Later on “State of the Union,” Liz Cheney joined Tapper and called Vance’s interview a “mix of desperation and naivete.”
“I think what we just watched is what it looks like when someone has got to go through just unbelievable contortions to try to find a way to defend the person that JD Vance himself called America’s Hitler,” Cheney said. “And just so many, so many just really stunning attacks.”
She added, “The Trump campaign, Donald Trump, JD Vance, they absolutely understand how damaging it is for the American people to see all of these unprecedented levels of senior officials from the Trump administration telling the American people that Donald Trump is unfit. And so they concoct these things that are completely divorced from any connection to the truth to lash out and attack.”
Kelly’s fascism comments fueled the rest of the Sunday shows throughout the morning.
Republican senators Marco Rubio (Florida) and Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) defended the former president. Rubio said on “Fox News Sunday” that Kelly and Milley were lying and he was skeptical of the timing of their comments. Graham, meanwhile, said while he respects the generals, he does not believe these accusations.
“They’re trying to scare Americans that this man can’t fix the problems we need fixed. I reject that,” Graham said on ABC’s “This Week.” “I was there too. I was around him. I don’t think he’s a fascist. I thought he was a very strong president at a time we needed a strong president.”
Shortly after, former Republican Gov. Chris Christie also joined ABC, where he called Graham a hypocrite.
“Well, you want to talk about textbook hypocrite, I mean that’s Lindsey,” the New Jersey Republican said. “How the hell did Lindsey Graham sit in that chair and look in that camera and say the things he said about Donald Trump this morning? This is why people hate politics.”
Later on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he doesn’t like to use the word “fascist” but said Trump clearly has a “strong tendency to authoritarianism and to undermining American democracy.” And he said this is why generals and other Republicans who have split with Trump, even when they agree with his policies.
“It’s not because of policy issues,” Sanders said. “It is because they understand that Trump is an authoritarian, does not believe in the rule of law, and for one hundred reasons is unfit to be president of the United States.”
