(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
John Kelly, Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, went on the record with The Atlantic’s editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg and confirmed that Trump once told him that he wished he acted like the “German generals,” which he later clarified meant specifically “Hitler’s generals.”
Goldberg explained that the comments were first reported by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in their book, The Divider: Trump in the White House. In the book, the reporting couple writes that while in office Trump asked Kelly, “Why can’t you be like the German generals?” Goldberg further summed up Baker’s and Glasser’s reporting:
Trump, at various points, had grown frustrated with military officials he deemed disloyal and disobedient. (Throughout the course of his presidency, Trump referred to flag officers as “my generals.”) According to Baker and Glasser, Kelly explained to Trump that German generals “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off.” This correction did not move Trump to reconsider his view: “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” the president responded.
Goldberg then went on to recall his own recent conversation with Kelly, the former four-star Marine Corps general, who also recounted Trump calling U.S. soldiers “losers” and “suckers” for being killed and buried in military cemeteries in Europe. Goldberg wrote:
This week, I asked Kelly about their exchange. He told me that when Trump raised the subject of “German generals,” Kelly responded by asking, “‘Do you mean Bismarck’s generals?’” He went on: “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.” Kelly told me Trump was not acquainted with Rommel.
Goldberg noted that Kelly had also spoken to CNN reporter Jim Sciutto for his book The Return of Great Powers and recalled Trump once offered praise for Hitler.
“He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things,’” Kelly said of Trump in Sciutto’s book. “I said, ‘Well, what?’ And he said, ‘Well, (Hitler) rebuilt the economy.’ But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world.”
“I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing,’” Kelly recalled telling Trump.
Gen. Mark Milley, the former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s first secretary of defense, as well as many other Trump officials, have all warned that Trump represents an existential threat to U.S. democracy if he is reelected. Milley went so far as to call Trump a “fascist to the core” and the “most dangerous” threat facing the country.
Read the full article in The Atlantic here.
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