'Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals?' John Kelly opens up about Trump's shocking ask
Former President Donald Trump's one-time chief of staff retired Marine Gen. John Kelly told The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg more details about the infamous exchange in which he demanded Kelly act more like the generals for Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Kelly, who also served as Trump's Homeland Security secretary and has become increasingly outspoken against the former president since leaving the administration, has previously revealed Trump's obsession with Hitler.
Peter Baker and Susan Glasser's book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, has already detailed that Trump asked Kelly, “Why can’t you be like the German generals?” at a moment when he was frustrated over his lack of full compliance from the military on every scheme he wanted to do. Kelly told Trump that Hitler's generals actually “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off,” which Trump didn't believe, saying, “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him.”
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Kelly had a bit more detail to add in his conversation with Goldberg.
Specifically, Kelly, said Goldberg, "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 [Erwin] Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler.' Kelly told me Trump was not acquainted with Rommel."
Many of the former military officials who held high positions in Trump's administration have warned they believe he is unfit for office — a point that Vice President Kamala Harris frequently brings up in interviews, debates, and elsewhere on the campaign trail.