Former President Donald Trump was in Georgia on Wednesday for a “believers and ballots” town hall appealing to evangelical voters, but he made no mention of his former chief of staff John Kelly calling him a “fascist” and recounting the former president praising Adolf Hitler in the pages of the New York Times. 

It was only after the event that Trump addressed Kelly’s comments, which were amplified by Vice President Kamala Harris earlier in the day. In a social media post, Trump said Kelly “made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred” and was both “dumb” and weak. 

“Even though I shouldn’t be wasting my time with him, I always feel it’s necessary to hit back in pursuit of THE TRUTH. John Kelly is a LOWLIFE, and a bad General, whose advice in the White House I no longer sought, and told him to MOVE ON!” Trump wrote.

While Trump’s campaign has denounced Kelly’s accusations through a spokesperson, the former president had yet to directly respond to the former Marine general’s description of his old boss as a “fascist” and someone who believed Hitler “did some good things, too.” Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff during his first term, detailed his opinion of Trump and recounted stories from his time working in the White House in a series of interviews with the Times published on Tuesday night.

In remarks from her official residence in Washington on Wednesday, Kamala Harris said Kelly’s admissions about Trump were “deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous.” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also said on Wednesday that President Joe Biden agreed Trump is a fascist. 

“It is clear from John Kelly’s words that Donald Trump is someone who I quote, ‘certainly falls into the general definition of fascists,’” Harris said. “It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of six million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans.”

Trump’s campaign responded to Harris through spokesperson Steven Cheung, who called the vice president a “stone -cold loser” who is peddling “outright lies and falsehoods.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Trump sat down with Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in Zebulon, Ga., and took questions from the audience for about a half hour, praising Christian conservatives and joking he could run for prime minister of Israel if “things didn’t work out here.” As he has in his past campaigns, Trump has made a substantial appeal to evangelical Christians by emphasizing his alignment with their domestic policy demands and his support for Israel.

“If you look over the last 30 years or so, for whatever reason, Christians are not tremendous voters in terms of percentage. If they were, we would never lose an election. We wouldn't have had these people in office. We would never lose an election,” Trump said. “I think we're going to see those numbers go way up. I'm almost sure of it.”

Trump also claimed towards the end of his remarks, after moving outside the church the town hall was held in to greet more supporters who had gathered, that “I wanted to be a pastor, too, but they wouldn't accept me. They said, ‘You can do other things, but we're not going to let you be a pastor. We're not going to do that. So good luck.’”

Trump was also set to take part in a rally in Duluth, Ga., with Turning Point Action -- a far-right youth group -- on Wednesday night. Before Trump was scheduled to speak, far-right political commentator Benny Johnson led the crowd in a chant of “Christ is king!”

In his remarks at the town hall, Trump mocked Harris’ name, saying “nobody knows her as Harris” and mispronouncing her first name. He also questioned her mental abilities and claimed she took the day off campaigning on Tuesday despite her sitting for two lengthy interviews with NBC News and Telemundo.

Georgia is a key state in the presidential election, with Harris hoping to repeat Biden’s slim victory over Trump there in 2020. Harris was in Georgia for a series of events over the weekend aimed at getting the vote out among Black Christian communities and Trump was there last week. Harris will be back in Atlanta on Thursday with former President Barack Obama for a “get out the vote” rally. 

Both campaigns are deploying surrogates with frequency as more than two million people had already cast their ballot by early Wednesday afternoon, according to state officials. Georgia’s top election official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, told Fox News on Tuesday he believes as many as four million Georgians will vote during the early voting period ahead of Election Day. Around five million people in the state voted in 2020’s presidential election.

“It's going to be a big one. I think it's the most important election in the history of our country. I really believe that. I think most of the people here do, too. And we don't say that lightly, but it's a big one,” Trump said. 

After moving outside in Zebulon, Trump gave short remarks that painted a dark picture of the country’s current state, demonized immigrants and reflected briefly on this third campaign for the presidency.

“I just wanted to say, so we've had this journey together that has been incredible. There's never been anything like it. And I realize that we'll be doing it for literally just a few more days, and then it comes to an end, and then hopefully we'll do another journey and that will be the journey to make America better than it's ever been,” Trump said. “That’ll be a very pleasant journey and hopefully that’s going to come true.”