Donald Trump has branded his own former chief of staff, John Kelly, a “degenerate” and a “low life” after the former US Marine Corps general received support from Kamala Harris for calling his ex-boss a fascist.

With Kelly’s intervention effectively pushing the fascism debate to the center of the US presidential election, the Republican candidate also turned his fire on his Democratic opponent. He falsely accused Harris of calling him Adolf Hitler after the vice president amplified Kelly’s comments in a televised speech before endorsing them during a CNN town hall meeting.

Trump’s angry attack came in social media posts amid fallout from Kelly’s comments in a New York Times interview in which he recalled the former US president repeatedly praising Hitler’s achievements while in the White House .

In a separate interview with the Atlantic, Kelly described Trump complaining that he did not have generals who were loyal in the way he believed German military commanders had been to Hitler.

Trump responded on his Truth Social platform, calling Kelly — who served as his White House chief of staff for 18 months — a “degenerate… who made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred.”

“This man had two qualities that do not go well together,” he wrote. “He was tough and stupid. John Kelly has a low life.”

Kelly told the Times that Trump “met the common definition of a fascist” and said he would rule as a dictator if re-elected.

In Wednesday’s statement, Harris — who had issued increasingly sharp warnings during the campaign about Trump’s authoritarian vision in light of his increasingly threatening rhetoric — said the interview showed he was seeking “unchecked power.”

She added that it was “deeply disturbing and incredibly dangerous” that he would “invoke” Hitler. She later told CNN moderator Anderson Cooper that she agreed that Trump was a fascist and praised Kelly for sending a “911 call” to the nation.

Trump responded with a post to he claimed, polls showed she was losing.

Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung accused Harris of “dangerous rhetoric” that he said was “directly responsible for the multiple assassination attempts against President Trump.”

However, Kelly’s portrayal of Trump as an undemocratic authoritarian was supported by Elizabeth Neumann, a former deputy chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security in his administration, who told Politico that he “does not operate under the rule of law.”

‘Does he have authoritarian tendencies? Yes,’ she said. ‘Does he lean a little towards that component of ultra-nationalism? Absolute.”

Trump’s Republican supporters downplayed Kelly’s intervention. Chris Sununu, the Republican governor of New Hampshire, called his portrayal of the former president “an outrageous statement” and said Trump’s own record of extreme statements was “baked into” the electorate’s assessment.

“I respect John Kelly enormously, but obviously everyone knows there is a huge divide in personal relationships,” Sununu told NewsNation.

The feud overshadowed other developments on the campaign trail, with the Republican candidate expanding his catalog of recent threats against Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by the Justice Department to investigate allegations that he tried to overturn the 2020 election create and hide secret documents.

When asked by conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt whether he would grant himself a presidential pardon or fire Smith if elected, Trump said: “It’s that easy. I would fire him in two seconds.”

He also noted that “we have been granted immunity by the Supreme Court,” a reference to a ruling by the court’s conservative majority last June that presidents are immune from prosecution for official actions taken in the course of their duties.