John Kelly, who served as the White House chief of staff during Donald Trump’s presidency, claimed in a series of New York Times audio interviews that the former president praised Adolf Hitler on multiple occasions and believed a fascist approach would be a better approach to running America.
Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said he was troubled by former President Donald Trump's ... [+]
When asked if Trump was a fascist, Kelly read out the Wikipedia definition of Fascism and said that the former president “ certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”
Kelly said in his experience fascism is the kind of thing that Trump “thinks would work better in terms of running America,” adding that the former president was “certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators.”
On the issue of admiring dictators, Kelly said Trump “more than once” told him that “Hitler did some good things, too.”
The former White House chief of staff said Trump had little understanding of the Constitution and was frustrated by the limits to his power adding “He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”
Kelly, a former Marine general, also claimed Trump was surprised that the uniformed and retired generals he brought on board to work in his administration were loyal to the Constitution instead of “the boss, in this case, him.”
Kelly also reiterated his earlier statements about Trump describing wounded and dead veterans as “losers and suckers” and claimed the former president did not want “to be seen with amputees…that lost their limbs in defense of this country.”
Kelly agreed to speak with the Times on the record after being troubled by Trump’s recent comments about using the U.S. military to target his domestic enemies. “And I think this issue of using the military…to go after American citizens is one of those things I think is a very, very bad thing. Even to say it for political purposes to get elected, I think it’s a very, very bad thing, let alone actually doing it,” Kelly said.
In a statement shared with the press, the Trump campaign’s top spokesperson Steven Cheung said: “John Kelly has totally beclowned himself with these debunked stories he has fabricated, because he failed to serve his President well while working as Chief of Staff and currently suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator (New York Times)
Trump: 'I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had' (The Atlantic)