Trump’s former chief of staff says he fits ‘fascist’ definition and prefers ‘dictator approach’
By Donna October 23, 2024 8:23 pm Category: Horror (0.0 from 0 votes)
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John Kelly, the retired Marine general who was Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, entered the 2024 fray in stunning fashion in a series of interviews published Tuesday, saying the former president fits “into the general definition of fascist” and that he spoke of the loyalty of Hitler’s Nazi generals...
In addition to the fascist comments, Kelly — who was Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019 — told The New York Times that the former president “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”
He also confirmed to The Atlantic that Trump had said he wished his military personnel showed him the same deference Adolf Hitler’s Nazi generals showed the German dictator during World War II, and recounted the moment.
"'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’s campaign denied the exchange. “This is absolutely false. President Trump never said this,” campaign adviser Alex Pfeiffer said....
The Times reported Kelly criticized Trump’s “enemy within” comments, saying that “even to say it for political purposes to get elected — I think it’s a very, very bad thing, let alone actually doing it.”
The newspaper reported that in a recorded interview, Kelly was asked whether the former president met the definition of a fascist and responded by reading aloud a definition he’d found online.
"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.”
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