John Kelly, who was White House chief of staff during the Trump administration, said in a series of recent interviews that former President Donald Trump spoke positively about Adolf Hitler when he was in office.
The remark, published Tuesday, was made in one of Kelly’s interviews with The New York Times. Audio of his comments was made available online.
Kelly first joined the Trump administration as homeland security secretary and later was White House chief of staff from July 2017 until early 2019.
“He commented more than once that, you know, that Hitler did some good things, too,” Kelly said. He also told the New York Times that Trump meets “the general definition of a fascist.”
“Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure,” Kelly said.
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement that Kelly “totally beclowned himself” by recounting “debunked stories” about the Trump administration.
“President Trump has always honored the service and sacrifice of all of our military men and women,” Cheung said.
The Atlantic reported earlier Tuesday that Trump had privately admired Hitler’s generals “who were totally loyal to him” and followed orders, privately saying in a conversation at the White House, “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had.”
“This is absolutely false,” Trump spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer wrote in an email, The Atlantic reported. “President Trump never said this.”
NBC News has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
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Kelly told NBC News in 2022 that when Trump complained about U.S. generals, he would tell Trump that their foremost loyalty was to the Constitution and the rule of law.
More recently, Democrats have likened some of Trump’s rhetoric to Hitler’s. In December, Trump sparked backlash with a remark he made at a rally in New Hampshire in which he said immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” Hitler used the term “blood poisoning” in his manifesto, “Mein Kampf,” to denigrate immigration and the mixing of races. Trump has denied reading the text.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, referred to The Atlantic’s reporting on Trump’s admiration of Hitler’s generals at a campaign rally in Racine, Wisconsin, on Tuesday night, saying, “That makes me sick as hell, and it should make you sick.”