Ex-Trump chief of staff John Kelly backs claim ex-prez praised Hitler: ‘Did some good things’
Former Trump White House chief of staff John Kelly has publicly supported a longstanding allegation that the former president spoke warmly about Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, who Trump allegedly said “did some good things.”
Kelly recounted the supposed comments while dishing on what he called the 45th president’s affection for strongmen to CNN’s Jim Sciutto for the latter’s forthcoming book, “The Return of Great Powers.”
“[Trump] said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things.’ I said, ‘Well, what?’ And he said, ‘Well, [Hitler] rebuilt the economy.’ But what did he do with that rebuilt economy?” Kelly told the author.
“[Hitler] turned it against his own people and against the world. And I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing,’” Kelly went on. “’I mean, Mussolini was a great guy in comparison.’”
The claim that Trump had praised Hitler first emerged in Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender’s 2021 book, “Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost.”
Trump had denied that claim to Bender at the time.
“It’s pretty hard to believe he missed the Holocaust, though, and pretty hard to understand how he missed the 400,000 American GIs that were killed in the European theater,” Kelly, 73, told Sciutto.
Trump also wasn’t aware, according to the former four-star Marine general, that “German generals as a group were not loyal to [Hitler], and in fact tried to assassinate him a few times.”
“He truly believed, when he brought us generals in, that we would be loyal — that we would do anything he wanted us to do,” Kelly added.
Trump, 77, has courted controversy on the campaign trail over his rhetoric, which critics claim mirrors that of the genocidal maniac.
In November, Trump railed against “radical left thugs that live like vermin” before saying the following month that illegal immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the US.
Kelly, who served as White House chief of staff from July 2017 to January 2019, reckoned that the reason “why he likes the dictators so much is that’s who he is.”
“Every incoming president is shocked that they actually have so little power without going to the Congress, which is a good thing,” he explained.
“But in his case, he was shocked that he didn’t have dictatorial-type powers to send US forces places or to move money around within the budget. And he looked at [Vladimir] Putin and Xi [Jinping] and that nutcase in North Korea [Kim Jong Un] as people who were like him in terms of being a tough guy.”
When asked for a comment by The Post, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung ripped into Kelly and former National Security adviser John Bolton, who also bashed Trump to Sciutto in the book.
“John Kelly and John Bolton have completely beclowned themselves and are suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome by spreading lies. They need to seek professional help because their hatred is consuming their empty lives,” Cheung told The Post.
Bolton, who has been an outspoken critic of Trump and even considered mounting a 2024 campaign for the presidency, posited that Trump “views himself as a big guy.”
“He likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. He kind of likes that,” Bolton told Sciutto.
Kelly concurred, saying of Trump: “He’s not a tough guy by any means, but in fact quite the opposite … But that’s how he envisions himself.”
Deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger underscored that “Trump believed in the power of his personal charisma and diplomacy.”
“[Trump] had almost unlimited faith in it. That was as true with Kim as it was with Xi — but also with allies too.”
Trump has poked at his rivals who fret that he will try to become an authoritarian during a second term. Back in December, Trump mused to Fox News that he would only be a dictator for “one day.”
“We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling,” Trump told host Sean Hannity. “After that, I’m not a dictator.”
“The Rise of Great Powers” is set to hit shelves on Tuesday.
