John Kelly, the retired Marine general who was Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, entered the 2024 fray in stunning fashion, saying the former president fits “into the general definition of fascist” and wanted the “kind of generals Hitler had” in a series of interviews published Tuesday.
Kelly’s comments, two weeks from Election Day, are the latest in a line of warnings from former Trump White House aides about how he views the presidency and would exercise power if returned to office.
In addition to the fascist comments, Kelly — who was Trump’s chief of staff from 2017 to 2019 — told
The New York Times that the former president “certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”
He also confirmed to
The Atlantic that Trump had said he wished his military personnel showed him the same deference Adolf Hitler’s Nazi generals showed the German dictator during World War II, and recounted the moment.