Trump says he needed 'the kind of generals that Hitler had'

Republican candidate and former US president Donald Trump allegedly said that he needed "the kind of generals that Hitler had” in a private White House conversation during his presidency, according to reporting from The Atlantic. 

According to allegations from former White House chief of staff John Kelley, Trump also made statements in private conversations revering Adolf Hitler.

“He 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? 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 said to The New York Times in an article published Wednesday.

“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.”

Trump wanted the military to show absolute deference

Trump allegedly also asked Kelley to show him the same reverence that German military personnel showed Hitler. Kelley says that Trump asked him, “Why can’t you be like the German generals?" according to Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in their book The Divider: Trump in the White House. 

"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," Kelley told The Atlantic.

Kelley served as Trump's chief of staff from 2017 to 2019. He is a retired four-star Marine general and the longest-serving chief of staff for the Trump administration. While he has said he agrees with some of Trump's policies, he believes that "it’s a very dangerous thing to have the wrong person elected to high office.”

Kelley also stated that he believes that Trump is fascist and that he had a "dictator approach to government."

“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.

Trump, according to Kelley, "never accepted the fact that he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world — and by power, I mean an ability to do anything he wanted, anytime he wanted."

Election day looms

These allegations come nearly two weeks before the US presidential election.

Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris said Trump wanted "a military that will be loyal to him personally" and called Trump's statements admiring Hitler "incredibly dangerous and deeply troubling." 

Donald Trump vowed to be a dictator on day one. He vowed to use the military to carry out personal and political vendettas. His former chief of staff said he wanted generals like Hitler’s. Trump wants unchecked power. In 13 days, the American people will decide what they want. pic.twitter.com/p26wvGiN4i

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 23, 2024

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a daily press briefing that President Biden agrees with Kelley's deductions. 

“To be praising Adolf Hitler is dangerous, and it’s also disgusting,” Jean-Pierre said to reporters. 

The Trump campaign has denied all allegations of these statements. 

"This is absolutely false,” Trump campaign adviser Alex Pfeiffer said regarding Kelley's statements, as reported by The Atlantic. “President Trump never said this.”

The Trump campaign further said in a statement that Kelly was telling “debunked stories” about his years in the administration and that Harris "is increasingly desperate because she is flailing, and her campaign is in shambles. That is why she continues to peddle outright lies and falsehoods that are easily disproven.”