In his new book The Return of Great Powers, which comes out Tuesday, reporter Jim Sciutto interviews several of Trump’s former advisers. All of them stressed that Trump regularly lavished praise on authoritarian leaders around the world, calling Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “fantastic,” Chinese President Xi Jinping “brilliant,” and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un an “OK guy.”
Horrifyingly, Trump also said, “Well, but Hitler did some good things,” according to John Kelly, who served as White House chief of staff from 2017 to 2019.
“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 told Sciutto. “I mean, Mussolini was a great guy in comparison.”
Kelly said that Trump also praised Hitler for achieving complete loyalty from senior Nazi officials—and Trump expected similar fealty from the retired generals he brought on to his cabinet.
“He would ask about the loyalty issues and about how, when I pointed out to him the German generals as a group were not loyal to him, and in fact tried to assassinate him a few times, and he didn’t know that,” Kelly said. “He truly believed, when he brought us generals in, that we would be loyal—that we would do anything he wanted us to do.”
“Hitler did some good things” would end absolutely anyone else’s campaign in America. And this guy still has a chance of winning.
His ex-wife Ivana said in their divorce hearings that he kept Mein Kampf on his bedside table. Very believable, but perhaps he had it just as a token since I’m not convinced he can really read.
Here’s the fun part. Ivana said it was Hitler speeches. Trump says it might have been Mein Kampf.
He’s a complete fucking nong, but he’s not that stupid that he can’t read.
I think they meant anything longer than a tweet or a newspaper article about himself. We know how his officials had to dumb down every briefing for him because he never read anything ahead of time and had a hard time in general comprehending basic topics.
He seems to have a problem reading teleprompters, the easiest thing to read since the invention of books in large print.
A bit of an exaggeration, sure. I suppose if he was motivated by something he truly loves like Hitler, he could sit down and read a book.
Not a chance. You can’t have it both ways, and there’s no way he had the patience to read an old book. He didn’t read intelligence briefings specifically made for him.
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-trade-tariffs-eu-colorful-cards-2018-7
Being able to and wanting to, being practised in reading and actually understanding what you read are probably very different things. Some people decided that colorful flash cards work best with him. The news articles about him not reading his briefing materials but looking at the pictures are also out there. I think he reads everything that comes in the size of a flash card or a tweet, much longer than that and I have my doubts.
It’s true. Say what you want about Adolf Hitler… he did kill Adolf Hitler.
People ain’t sick of reading it yet, but I think the only reassuring thing about racist governments is that they inevitably fail by their own doing.
It took most of the world uniting against him to get to that point. I don’t know if that can be considered “their own doing.” I guess that happened because of things they did, but it didn’t passively fall apart. Don’t be complacent hoping fascists will just destroy themselves because there is little to no evidence for that.
Kelly said that Trump also praised Hitler for achieving complete loyalty from senior Nazi officials—and Trump expected similar fealty from the retired generals he brought on to his cabinet.
“He would ask about the loyalty issues and about how, when I pointed out to him the German generals as a group were not loyal to him, and in fact tried to assassinate him a few times, and he didn’t know that,” Kelly said. “He truly believed, when he brought us generals in, that we would be loyal—that we would do anything he wanted us to do.”
If John Kelly had any morals he would have immediately held a press conference to tell the nation that Trump was praising Hitler’s expectations that all generals have loyal to him before the nation and then immediately resign.
All these Republicans waiting years to expose this instead of when Trump was in power shows they are all complicit.
Why come out and tell us he’s a fascist thug when you can sell us that information for $17.95?
Ah yes, the “hitler was good for the economy” bullshit. Even if you’d ignore all the atrocities (which you shouldn’t), fact is that the outcome was a country in ruins.
And Hitler’s economic plan was always based on stealing resources from other countries through war, because else the country’s spending was unsustainable.
Yes. In fact it’s a myth that the economy was strong even in the short term.
So I guess Trump wants the government to take over most businesses, have them make panzer tanks and Messerschmitts, and invade a bunch of countries to get slave labor.
Trump striving to be like notoriously vicious dictators is part of what makes him so appealing to conservative voters.
If history is our guide, your conservative coworkers, neighbors and family members will politely watch as you are escorted onto a bus headed for re-education camp. They won’t be overt or cartoonish in their evil. They will just be themselves.
