Trump tells rally crowd he’s ‘the opposite of a Nazi’ amid fallout from Madison Square Garden event

Donald Trump has claimed that he is "the opposite of a Nazi" after multiple members of his first term administration said that they believe he is a fascist.

Speaking at a rally at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta on Monday night, the former president declared: "I'm not a Nazi. I'm the opposite of a Nazi."

But 13 former aides, as well as his former chief of staff John Kelly and the former head of America's military Mark Milley, beg to differ.

In an interview with The New York Times last week, Kelly said that Trump fits "the definition of fascism", and he has previously claimed that Trump privately praised Hitler and expressed envy at his control over the military.

Shortly afterwards, 13 former members of Trump's White House wrote a letter in support of Kelly's comments, saying: "There are moments in history where it becomes necessary to put country over party. This is one of those moments. Everyone should heed General Kelly’s warning."

Those comments echoed a revelation from journalist Bob Woodward's new book, War, which claims that Milley had called Trump "the most dangerous person to this country" and "a fascist to the core".

In recent weeks Trump has repeated fulminated against "the enemy within", suggesting that he would use the US military or the National Guard to "handle" his political opponents.

At a high-profile rally in New York City's Madison Square Garden arena, speakers called Kamala Harris "the antichrist", "the devil", and "the first Samoan, Malaysian, low IQ" presidential nominee.

Harris's running mate Tim Walz later compared the event to an infamous pro-Hitler rally held at the same location in 1939, whose organizers declared that "if George Washington were alive today, he would be friends with Adolf Hitler".