John Kelly said Trump wanted generals like Hitler, a new report has found

Retired Gen. John Kelly, Donald Trump’s former secretary of homeland security and White House chief of staff, shared details about the former president in the final days of his presidency, specifically “Hitler’s generals,” according to a new report from The Atlantic.

“I need the kind of generals Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation at the White House, which The Atlantic initially attributed to two people who heard him say it. That comment was later confirmed by Kelly, who grew up in Boston.

During a conversation with The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, Kelly confirmed the type of generals Trump was referring to, saying, “Yes, yes, Hitler’s generals.”

In earlier reports from Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s book ‘The Divider: Trump in the White House’, published in 2022, Trump reportedly told the retired Brighton-born Kelly that his generals were not ‘completely loyal’ like those of Adolf Hitler during the war. World War II.

Baker and Glasser wrote in their book that Trump asked Kelly during his time in office: “Why can’t you be like the German generals?”

The book excerpt then described Kelly, a Marine, explaining to Trump that German generals “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost succeeded,” to which the then-president responded, “No, no, no, they were completely loyal.” it.”

In an interview for CNN’s Jim Sciutto’s book “The Return of Great Powers,” Kelly revealed that Trump had praised certain aspects of Hitler’s leadership. Kelly recalled Trump saying, “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? He turned against his own people and against the world. And I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about that man. Nothing,” Kelly recalled of the conversation he had with Trump.

Trump’s affinity for authoritarian leaders has been documented both during his time in the White House and during his 2024 re-election campaign, where he used language often associated with Nazi Germany and other dictatorships.

Ahead of this year’s presidential race, Trump previously used rhetoric echoing Adolf Hitler when he said immigrants entering the U.S. illegally are “poisoning the blood of our country” and called his opponents “pests.”

In May, Trump posted a video on Truth Social that included references to a “United Empire” under hypothetical news headlines if he won the November election. The post was subsequently removed by the Trump campaign.

In his conversation with Goldberg, Kelly also said the former president “used the terms suckers and losers to describe soldiers who gave their lives in defense of our country.” He added: “There are a lot of people who heard him say these things.”

Alyssa Vega can be reached at [email protected].