CNN —
Retired Marine General John Kelly, who was President Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, entered the 2024 conflict in spectacular fashion, saying the former president fits the “general definition of a fascist” and that Hitler He said he wanted “generals like the one he had.” A series of interviews were published on Tuesday.
Kelly’s comments, two weeks after Election Day, come amid a series of questions from former Trump White House aides about how he views the presidency and how he would wield power if he returned to office. This is the latest warning to be issued.
In addition to the fascist comments, Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, told the New York Times that the former president “certainly prefers a dictator approach to government.” Ta.
He also told The Atlantic that he wished Trump would show him the same respect that Adolf Hitler’s Nazi generals showed the German dictator during World War II. He admitted it and talked about what happened at that time.
“‘Are you talking about Bismarck’s generals?'” Kelly told The Atlantic he asked Trump. He went on to say, “So I knew he didn’t know about Bismarck or the Franco-Prussian War.” I said, “You mean the Kaiser’s generals?” No way Hitler’s generals. Isn’t that what you’re saying? ‘And he said, ‘Yes, yes, Hitler’s generals.’ I explained to him that Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a conspiracy against Hitler. ”
The Trump campaign denied the exchange. “This is completely false. President Trump never said that,” campaign adviser Alex Pfeiffer said.
But Democrats quickly seized on the comment. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, said at a rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday night that his reported comments about Hitler’s generals were “sickening to death.” .
“Guys, the guardrails are gone. President Trump has fallen into this madness — former U.S. president and U.S. presidential candidate says he wants a general like Adolf Hitler.” Army National Guard said Mr. Walz.
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Kelly’s comments came late in her campaign with Harris, as Trump seeks to return to the Oval Office four years after losing an election he falsely claimed was riddled with fraud. be.
President Trump has mused in recent speeches and interviews about turning the U.S. military against his political opponents, whom he called “the enemy within.” He pointed out that this is evidence that there is a danger to the values of Japan.
“This is democracy,” she told Fox News last week. “And in a democracy, the president of the United States should be willing to deal with criticism without saying he’s going to lock people up for criticism.”
According to a report in the Times, Kelly criticized President Trump’s “enemy within” comment and said, “It’s very, very bad to even say something for political purposes to get elected, let alone actually do it.” I think so.”
The newspaper reported that Kelly was asked in a recorded interview if the former president met the definition of a fascist, and he responded by reading out a definition he found online.
“If we look at the definition of fascism, it is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement characterized by authoritarian leaders, centralized tyranny, militarism, and opposition. “The forced oppression of people, the belief in natural social hierarchies,” Kelly said. “Certainly, in my experience, he thinks these things will work out better in terms of running the United States.”
Kelly continued: “The former president is certainly on the far right spectrum, he is definitely an authoritarian, and he admires dictators — that’s what he says.” spoke. Therefore, he certainly falls under the general definition of a fascist. ”
Kelly told the Times that Trump “never accepted the fact that he was not the most powerful person in the world. Power is the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want.” .
“I think he wants to be like he is when he’s in business: If you tell people to do something, they do it, and he doesn’t really care about whether it’s legal or not. I don’t care,” he said.
He also said that President Trump did not understand the Constitution or the values that the nation was founded on, and that the idea that government officials’ loyalty was to the Constitution and not to the president personally was “a new concept to him.”
Trump campaign communications director Stephen Chan said in a statement that Kelly “failed to serve the president adequately while serving as chief of staff and is currently in a debilitating state of Trump Derangement Syndrome. I am completely baffled by the articles exposing these lies.” ”
Journalist who spoke on the record with General John Kelly talks about interview
Kelly also told the Times that Trump praised Hitler.
“He made the comment many times, ‘Hitler did good things, too,'” Kelly said.
Kelly’s comments to the newspaper were published the same day The Atlantic reported that President Trump praised General Hitler’s loyalty.
“We need a general like Hitler,” Trump said in a private White House conversation during his presidency, according to The Atlantic. “They were people who were fiercely loyal to him and followed his orders.”
The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, told CNN’s Caitlan Collins on Tuesday night that Trump’s praise of Hitler was probably the “most shocking” thing Kelly had heard in the White House.
“Remember, throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has been frustrated with his generals, or as he calls them, ‘my generals,’ because they’ve unwisely done what he says. Because they don’t want to listen or follow orders,” Goldberg said.
Generals and other U.S. military officers take an oath to the Constitution, not to the commander-in-chief.
President Trump reportedly made similar comments about Hitler and his generals.
According to Kelly, CNN’s Jim Schutt previously reported in his book “The Return of the Great Powers” that Trump was said to have praised Hitler, saying, “Hitler did some good things.”
“He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did a good thing.’ I said, ‘So what?’ And he said, “Well, [Hitler] Rebuilt the economy. ‘But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and the world. And I said, “Sir, you can never say anything good about that guy.” Nothing,” Kelly told Schutt. “So compared to that, Mussolini was a great man.”
“That said, it’s pretty hard to believe that he missed the Holocaust, and it’s pretty hard to understand how he could have missed the 400,000 American soldiers killed on the European front,” Kelly told Shoots. spoke. “But again, I think it’s a tough guy thing.”
In a book published in 2022, Trump reportedly told Kelly, “Why can’t you be like a German general?” Trump’s comments during his presidency were reported in Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s “The Divider: Trump in the White House.”
Kelly confirmed to The Atlantic that he had communicated with Trump.
The article develops a series of stories The Atlantic used to explain President Trump’s views on the military and his desires for how it should function under his command. In addition to detailing the former president’s musings about the loyalty of Nazi generals, The Atlantic reported that Trump was furious about how much it cost to voluntarily pay for the funerals of fallen soldiers.
The Atlantic reported that President Trump told the family of Fort Hood Pfc. Vanessa Guillen was bludgeoned to death with a hammer in the armory room where she worked, but she said she would pay for her funeral, but she did not.
When he received the $60,000 bill, President Trump reported, “It costs less than $60,000 to bury the King of Mexico!” citing two people who attended the meeting and a memo from someone who was at the meeting.
President Trump instructed then-chief of staff Mark Meadows not to pay for the funeral. Later that day, Trump reportedly said, “You motherfuckers are trying to fool me.”
“President Donald Trump never said that. This is an outrageous lie from the Atlantic two weeks before the election,” Pfeiffer said.
CNN’s Alayna Treene contributed to this report.
