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 being “increasingly unhinged and unstable,” as she pointed to critical comments made by retired Gen. John Kelly, the former White House chief of staff, in a New York Times interview.

The vice president argued that Trump was a “fascist,” noting Kelly’s accusations that the then-president repeatedly expressed admiration for Nazi Germany’s dictator Adolf Hitler.

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

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From the Vice President’s residence at the US Naval Observatory on October 23, 2024, Kamala Harris spoke about former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s recent comments about former President Donald Trump, including that he was “within the common definition of fascist” fits and wanted the “kind of generals that Hitler had.” (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

When asked if she believed the Republican presidential candidate was a fascist, the vice president replied “yes, I believe so.”

And she emphasized that American voters “care about our democracy and they don’t have a president of the United States who admires dictators and is a fascist.”

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

The former president claimed that Harris “increasingly increased her rhetoric, even going so far as to call me Adolf Hitler, and whatever else occurred to her twisted 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 it: it is.

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.

Biden highlighted what he called the former president’s “assault on democracy” — while referring to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters aimed at undermining congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory — during a speech in January while out of election year.

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

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

But after a beleaguered Biden dropped his reelection bid in July and endorsed Harris to replace him atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket, the vice president and her advisers appeared to cast aside the Biden playbook on Trump.

Instead, the “joyful warrior” Harris put forward a more optimistic message and when she focused on Trump, she noted his petty grievances and called him a “non-serious 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, in a race for the margin of error in which many polls suggest the momentum belongs to Trump, there has been a marked change in tone from the vice president and her campaign.

“Donald Trump is becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged and will do anything to claim unchecked power for himself,” Harris accused last week during multiple campaign rallies in the battleground of Wisconsin.

Harris will deliver a speech described as a major “closing argument” next Tuesday — a week until Election Day — at the Ellipse, just south of the White House and north of the National Mall, according to a senior campaign official.

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 headlined a large gathering of supporters at the Ellipse on January 6, 2021. Many of those who attended Trump’s rally then marched to the US capital and joined other protesters in storming the building. The campaign sees the Ellipse as a symbolic location that they believe will make clear to voters the choice in the presidential elections.

The contrast with the former president that Harris is trying to draw comes as she and her campaign are making a full court press to attract disgruntled Republicans who supported Trump rival Nikki Haley during the Republican Party’s presidential primaries earlier this year.

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As Trump continues to exert his enormous influence over the Republican Party, even a small group of Republican voters who could vote for Harris could make a difference in some battleground states in a race that will likely be decided on the margins.

Harris has worked with high-profile 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 The 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 shift in Harris’ message is a sign that the president was right to repeatedly target Trump as an existential threat to democracy during his campaign.

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

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

Governor Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who has been a vocal supporter of the Republican nomination for years but says he will vote for Trump, said the attacks would fail to woo voters.

“You’re dealing with a person who makes outrageous statements all the time,” Sununu said of Trump during an interview on Fox News’ “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” “They are ingrained in the noise.”

Sununu argued that “the reason the Harris campaign is completely frozen and has lost all their momentum is because all they do is talk about crazy things that 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 most of the last decade, and they’re 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 assassination attempts on his life this summer, and many of the former president’s allies blame the rhetoric of some Democrats for fueling the toxic political climate.

“It is especially ironic that the Biden-Harris administration nurtured an idea of ​​unity and is now demonizing someone who has been the victim of multiple attempts on his life,” noted Reed, who has endorsed vocal Trump critic former Gov. Chris Christie. cycle.

Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump, arrives at a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania, two and a half months after he survived an assassination 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 last presidency than the current one. Prices were lower, the border was more secure and ‘inflation’ was an esoteric term from economics and not a headache in everyday life. Harris campaign has failed to lay out their vision and positive plans to address these issues, leaving them no choice but to focus solely on the negatives surrounding Trump and hope for the best.”

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

Even some Democrats have problems with the new reporting.

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

Moyer said that “if I were the Harris campaign, I would continue to hammer home the message until Election Day of what Harris will do for these voters to lower costs and help them get ahead. In doing so, she will speak to the top. Voters who have the luxury of worrying about widespread concerns about the fate of democracy are likely already voting for Harris.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more on our Fox News Digital election hub.