Ex-chief of staff criticizes Trump for Hitler talk

Retired Gen. John Kelly, who served as White House chief of staff in the Trump administration, recounted several conversations where former President Trump spoke favorably about Adolf Hitler, saying the Nazi leader had done “some good things” and had inspired loyalty within his military.

Kelly spoke about the conversations in an interview with CNN anchor and chief national security analyst Jim Sciutto, who is publishing them as part of a new book, “The Rise of Great Powers.”

A preview of the book was published Monday.

“He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things,’” Kelly said of one conversation with Trump.

“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. And I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing,’” Kelly told Sciutto, going over how he has responded to this then-boss.

“I mean, Mussolini was a great guy in comparison,” Kelly said he had told Trump, referring to the Italian fascist leader and ally of Hitler.

According to Sciutto’s book, Kelly and other former advisers to Trump believe the former president’s favorable words toward Hitler are a reflection of how he sees autocrats past and present.

Sciutto writes that Kelly and others told him they “believe that the root of his admiration for these figures is that he envies their power.”

John Bolton, the former national security adviser to Trump who fell out with the ex-president, told Sciutto that Trump “views himself as a big guy,” adding, “He likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like [President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. He kind of likes that.”

Trump has also come under scrutiny for a Friday meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán that was criticized by President Biden.

In a statement, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung ripped both Kelly and Bolton, who have each said critical things in the past about Trump.

“John Kelly and John Bolton have completely beclowned themselves and are suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. They need to seek professional help because their hatred is consuming their empty lives,” he wrote in the statement.

Kelly told Sciutto it was hard to understand what he described as blind spots in how Trump thinks of Hitler.

“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 told Sciutto. “But I think it’s more, again, the tough guy thing.”

Kelly also said Trump admired Nazi officers’ loyalty to Hitler, lamenting that Trump himself was not able to maintain the same level of loyalty.

“He would ask about the loyalty issues and about how, when I pointed out to him the German generals as a group were not loyal to him, and in fact tried to assassinate him a few times, and he didn’t know that,” Kelly said to Sciutto.

“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.

Kelly told Sciutto that Trump is “not a tough guy by any means, but in fact quite the opposite,” adding, “but that’s how he envisions himself.”

Updated at 12:24 p.m. ET