John Kelly's comments, two weeks from Election Day, are the latest in a line of warnings from former Trump White House aides about how he views the presidency and would exercise power if returned to office.
John Kelly, the retired Marine general who was Donald Trump's White House chief of staff, entered the 2024 fray in stunning fashion, saying the former president fits "into the general definition of fascist" and wanted the "kind of generals Hitler had" in a series of interviews published Tuesday.
"'Do you mean Bismarck's generals?'" Kelly told The Atlantic he'd asked Trump. He added, "I mean, I knew he didn't know who Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War. I said, 'Do you mean the kaiser's generals? Surely you can't mean Hitler's generals?' And he said, 'Yeah, yeah, Hitler's generals.' I explained to him that Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler.
Trump has mused in recent speeches and interviews about turning the US military on political rivals he has referred to as the "enemy within" - comments that Harris has pointed to as evidence that the former president is "unhinged" and poses a danger to democratic values. "Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It's a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy," Kelly said. "So certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America.
He also said Trump didn't understand the Constitution or the values on which the nation was built, and that it "was a new concept for him" that top government officials' loyalty was to the Constitution, not the president personally. Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday night that Trump's admiration of Hitler was perhaps the "most shocking" thing Kelly heard in the White House.
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