'Definition of a fascist:' Ex-White House chief of staff John Kelly sounds alarm on Trump
Former Marine General John Kelly, who also served as Donald Trump’s longest-running chief of staff, blasted his old boss in interviews with the New York Times, spurred by the former president’s recent threats to use the military on the “enemy from within.”
“I think this issue of using the military on — to go after — American citizens is one of those things I think is a very, very bad thing — even to say it for political purposes to get elected — I think it’s a very, very bad thing, let alone actually doing it,” Kelly told the Times in the wide-ranging interview that hit on topics from Trump’s “lack of understanding of history and the Constitution” — to his speaking "positively of Hitler."
Kelly told the newspaper that his former boss “met the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the concept of rule of law.”
He confirmed reports that Trump “made admiring statements about Hitler, had expressed contempt for disabled veterans and had characterized those who died on the battlefield for the United States as 'losers' and 'suckers' — comments first reported by The Atlantic.”
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Kelly said that Trump is the only president in his lifetime to not understand American values and reject the Constitution.
“He just doesn’t understand the values — he pretends, he talks, he knows more about America than anybody, but he doesn’t,” Kelly said, according to the publication.
He added in the interviews that denials by Trump and his aides regarding the former president reportedly referring to injured and killed service members as “losers and suckers” were false.
“The time in Paris was not the only time that he ever said it,” Kelly told the Times. He continued: "Whenever John McCain’s name came up, he’d go through this rant about him being a loser, and all those people were suckers, and why do you people think that people getting killed are heroes?”
The story concludes the recorded, on-the-record interview series by saying that Kelly had “nothing good to say about Mr. Trump.”