Democrats are leaning into reports that former President Donald Trump previously said that he wished he had generals akin to Nazi Germany dictator Adolf Hitler.
John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff, told The Atlantic and The New York Times that the former president repeatedly praised Hitler during his term in the White House. The reports were published earlier this week, just days before the November 5 election, as Trump seeks a second term in the Oval Office.
Former President Barack Obama highlighted Kelly’s report during a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in Atlanta on Thursday, telling supporters that a second Trump presidency would be “dangerous.”
“And you do not have to take my word for it. Lately, some of the people who know Donald Trump best have been saying in no uncertain terms that he should not be president again,” Obama said, in part referring to Kelly.
“In politics, a good rule of thumb is, don’t say you want to do anything like Hitler,” Obama added. “That’s just good political advice. But it is useful because it gives us a window into how Donald Trump thinks.”
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Harris also ripped Trump as a “fascist” during a CNN town hall Wednesday night, adding that she believes “that the people who know him best, on this subject, should be trusted.”
“They have said, explicitly, he has contempt for the Constitution of the United States,” Harris said, noting Trump’s former administration staffers who have also raised concerns about the former president. “They have said he should never again serve as president of the United States.”
Trump has said that reports about his conversation with Kelly are “a lie” and that his former official “made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred!”
“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,” Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social earlier this week. “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 campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told Newsweek via email on Thursday, “Kamala Harris is a stone-cold loser who is increasingly desperate because she is flailing, and her campaign is in shambles. That is why she continues to peddle outright lies and falsehoods that are easily disproven.”
Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, told The Atlantic in a report published Tuesday that he witnessed Trump admiring “Hitler’s generals” during his term in office and that Trump said he wanted “the kind of generals that Hitler had” during a meeting at the White House.
The former U.S. Marines general also told the Times in an interview published the same day that Trump praised Hitler on more than one occasion and that the former president had told him, “Hitler did some good things.” Kelly also said that he believes Trump is a “fascist” and “prefers the dictator approach to government.”
Kelly has been critical of Trump in the past, including claiming that the former president previously called veterans killed in combat “suckers” and “losers.” Kelly has not endorsed Harris for president, but those close to him have said that he would “rather chew broken glass” than vote for Trump.
Other former Trump officials, including his national security adviser, John Bolton, and secretary of defense, Mark Esper, have supported Harris this election. The vice president has also been endorsed by dozens of Republicans up and down the ballot, including former Congresswoman Liz Cheney and her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney.
During an appearance on CNN Thursday night, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in the 2016 presidential election, also spoke about Kelly’s comments, and told host Kaitlan Collins that she also believes Trump is a “fascist.”
“It may be a leap for some people, and a lot of others may think, ‘I don’t want to go there,'” Clinton said. “But please, open your eyes to the danger that this man poses to our country. Because I think it is clear and present for anybody paying attention.”
Update 10/24/24, 11:45 p.m.: This article has been updated with comment from Trump’s campaign.
