Fox Host Says Maybe Trump Didn’t Realize Hitler’s Generals Were Nazis
Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly went on the record this week in two bombshell interviews detailing his concerns about former President Donald Trump’s fascist ambitions.
On Tuesday, Kelly told The New York Times that the former president meets the established definition of fascism. “Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Kelly said, adding that Trump “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”
Kelly’s blunt interview with the Times came on the heels of a separate interview with The Atlantic, in which he elaborated on his previous assertions that the former president had expressed admiration for Hitler’s generals during his time as president. According to the recollections of two people who spoke to The Atlantic, Trump had once said he needed “the kind of generals that Hitler had,” as in “people who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.” When Kelly attempted to clarify with the former president exactly whose generals he was referring to, Trump confirmed that he meant “Hitler’s generals.”
Trump loyalists are defending the former president following the report. On Wednesday morning, Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade went to bat for the former president.
“[Former Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis and Kelly didn’t like the president,” Kilmeade said, referencing the memoir of H.R. McMaster — Trump’s former national security adviser who also wrote that Putin is manipulating Trump by exploiting his ego. “I can absolutely see [Trump] go, ‘It’d be great to have German generals that actually do what we ask them to do, maybe not fully being cognizant of the third rail of German generals who were Nazis or whatever,” Kilmeade said. “But he was frustrated with the slow down of commands that were not implemented.”
Kilmeade’s co-host, Lawrence Jones, added of Mattis and Kelly trying to check Trump’s worst impulses that it “wasn’t just a slow down it was insubordination,” and called for Trump’s former generals to be fired.
While some of Trump’s more draconian plans during his first administration were neutralized by government officials unwilling to break U.S. law or their oaths of office to placate him, the former president is planning a very different atmosphere for his next administration should he win in November. Trump’s allies are already pre-vetting potential candidates to fill appointments in a second administration, and loyalty to the MAGA movement is of chief concern.
“We can have the best of the best join him to create the most extraordinary government you have ever seen to protect you and to build the America that he wants to build,” Howard Lutnick, co-chair of Trump’s presidential transition team, said earlier this week. “They will be loyal to him. They will have fidelity to him. They will follow his policies.”
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