Donald Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff warns that the Republican presidential nominee meets the definition of a fascist and that during his time in office, Trump suggested that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler “did good things.”
The comments from John Kelly, the retired Marine general who worked for Trump in the White House from 2017 to 2019, appeared in interviews published Tuesday in The New York Times And The Atlantic. They are building on past warnings from former top Trump officials as the election enters its final two weeks.
Kelly has long been a critic of Trump and has previously accused him of calling veterans killed in combat “suckers” and “losers.” His new warnings came as Trump seeks a second term by pledging to dramatically expand his use of the military at home and suggesting he would use force to go after Americans he views as “enemies from within”.
“He repeatedly said, ‘You know, Hitler did good things, too,'” Kelly recalled. Times. Kelly said he usually ended the conversation by saying that “nothing (Hitler) did, you could say, was good,” but that Trump would occasionally return to the subject.
In his interview with the AtlanticKelly recalled that when Trump brought up the idea of needing “German generals,” Kelly asked if he was talking about “Bismarck’s generals,” referring to Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor who oversaw the unification of the ‘Germany. “Surely you can’t talk about Hitler’s generals,” Kelly recalled asking Trump. To which the former president replied: “Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.”
The Trump campaign denied those accounts Tuesday, with campaign spokesman Steven Cheung saying Kelly had “self-masked with these debunked stories that he fabricated.”
Polls show the race is close in swing states, and Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are crisscrossing the country to make their final speeches to a handful of undecided voters. Harris’ campaign has spent a lot of time reaching out to independent voters, using support from longtime Republicans such as former Rep. Liz Cheney and comments like Kelly’s to urge former Trump voters to reject his candidacy in November.
Harris’ campaign held a call with reporters Tuesday to raise the voices of retired military officials who highlighted how many officials who worked with Trump now oppose his campaign.
“The people who know him best are the most opposed to him, to his presidency,” the retired brigadier general said. General Steve Anderson.
Anderson said he wants Kelly to fully support Harris against Trump, something he has yet to do. But retired Army Reserve Col. Kevin Carroll, a former senior adviser to Kelly, said Wednesday that the former top Trump aide would “rather chew broken glass than vote for Donald Trump.”
Before becoming Trump’s chief of staff, Kelly worked as the former president’s secretary of homeland security, where he oversaw Trump’s attempts to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Kelly has also been at the forefront of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, which led to the separation of thousands of immigrant parents and their children along the southern border. These actions made him a villain to many on the left, including Harris.
Kelly is not the first former senior Trump administration official to portray the former president as a threat.
Retired Gen. Mark A. Milley, who served as chairman of Trump’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Bob Woodward in his recent book “War” that Trump was “a fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country.” And retired Gen. Jim Mattis, who worked as defense secretary under Trump, later reportedly told Woodward that he agreed with Milley’s assessment.
Throughout Trump’s political rise, the businessman-turned-politician has benefited from the support of former military personnel.
AP VoteCast found that about 6 in 10 military veterans said they voted for Trump in 2020, as did just over half of those who had a veteran in their household. Among voters in this year’s South Carolina Republican primary, AP VoteCast found that nearly two-thirds of veterans and people living in veterans’ homes voted for Trump over the former governor. South Carolina’s Nikki Haley, Trump’s toughest opponent in the 2024 Republican primary.