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.
Was it Mein Kampf or a book of Hitler’s speeches? I’ve heard both.
Here’s the fun part. Ivana said it was Hitler speeches. Trump says it might have been Mein Kampf.
What a kamikaze of a defense…
More of a blitzkrieg, he’s hoping to prevail through the use of shock tactics and being overwhelmingly offensive.
Hmm you might be right. And if 2016 has taught us anything: it might work.
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.
Part of that might be due to his refusal to wear his glasses in public.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-seen-wearing-glasses_n_5e1eac25c5b63211760b28cb
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.
I promise you’d be surprised what being interested in a topic can do. He doesn’t give a flying fuck about intelligence briefings. But a book by a genocidal dictator? Now that will really pique his interest.
If it isn’t true that Donald Trump mostly reads Harlequin romance novels, it will still now be my headcanon.
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.
True. Most of the time he’s simply not interested in reading
since I’m not convinced he can really read.
It’s the illustrated version with the big boy toy gun.
My list has two things:
- he lost
- he killed himself
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.
No, I wouldn’t say it passively fell apart either.
My argument is that they don’t recognize limitations. It’s a flaw baked into anti-intellectualism. Other than fiat currency, every real resource is finite, regardless of it’s current abundance. Facist governments can’t just “secure” their border and stay in power. They have to maintain a strongman, a national identity, something to prove they are better than the other.
What we see as poor strategies (Hitler’s support the Luftwaffe vs Wehrmacht) they would see as the “obvious choice.”
It can get very bad, to the point millions are killed. But it is unsustainable, and they will make enough “obvious choices” that enables their downfall.
He also implemented one of the first public smoking bans. Which is ironic considering all the other drugs he was on.
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.
Years and a lucrative book contract.
Why come out and tell us he’s a fascist thug when you can sell us that information for $17.95?
Don’t do anything unless it makes you rich. It’s the Republican way.
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.
I’m convinced conservatives would vote for a potato if you put it in a Nazi arm band at this point.
Not that anyone would expect Trump to know this, but Hitler rebuilding the economy was kind of a fraud. He basically used fake currency (before it was cool), banned unions and made it nearly impossible to quit a job, and stole from a big chunk of Germany’s own population and those surrounding it. Ordinary Germans saw a decline in their real wages by 25% from 1933 to 1938, and obviously things only got worse from there.
That actually is the core Nazi ideology. Honest work building something up by the rules is not cool, means weakness and degeneracy. Fraud and robbery is cool, means strength and cunning. But at the same time putting yourself into something sacrificial is cool too. “We do not sow” and all that.
So it was fraud, but I think most of the Germans loyal to that ideology understood that emotionally.
Many people in the Middle East and Africa have such worldview today.
Additionally many undesirable people were forced out of high skill jobs or had their business taken away. Robbing businesses of effective managers and workers. Leading to loss of productivity and a fall in GDP.
Both Nazi Germany and post war divided Germany made for very interesting natural experiments in economics. Weirdly because it would be unethical to do them as a controlled studying…
sigh
Fine.
Hitler-loving demented rapist fraud.
You forgot:
Orange Hitler-loving demented rapist fraud.
Treasonous orange Hitler-loving demented rapist fraud.
I am pretty sure you could fit speed freak in there somewhere
Right?? I was shocked to find that he’s still looking the same in the news from using that ridiculous tanner. He looks so fake and gaudy, I can’t.
Because he probably looks like a reanimated corpse without all that makeup.
For real. I think he toned it down for a bit during the pandemic and his face looked as pale as raw shrimp.
The right has always loved to say shit like “Mussolini made the trains run on time,” as code for “maybe a little fascism is good.”
And he didn’t even do that.
Yes… Where I’m from it’s “Hitler invented and built the Autobahn”. (Also not true btw…)
Whenever I drink an orange Fanta I do occasionally think “I guess this probably wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Coca-Cola trying to make a buck from the Nazis.” I’d gladly drink Orange Crush instead if it meant I could travel back in time to take out Hitler.
https://tenor.com/view/rhodey-doncheadle-war-machine-avengers-endgame-gif-14731127
I do like how Kim is just “an OK guy”
It’s a pretty big step up from “Little Rocket Man” though.
I don’t know, Little Rocket Man does indicate a more complex vocabulary. If anything “OK guy” signals some mental decline.
I just meant in terms of praise or insult.
Well that’s true.
My memory of that little fight is that Kim came out sounding much more sane than Trump did. Which is REALLY saying something.
But then they got together and made up, and Kim probably promised him that abandoned hotel, and suddenly they were best friends.
Kim probably complained that Trump used too much teeth.
(This is my Riker’s trombone playing a sour note standard reaction)
You’re stealing my bit, man!
To be fair, Hitler was a more talented painter than Trump is a businessman. A biiiiiiiig /s.
Hitler also killed Hitler. Maybe Trump should aspire to reach that level of commitment to the role.
A biiiiiiiig /s.
I mean yeah… but also you’re not wrong.
Just want to make sure that I am not glorifying Adolf here. :).
Hitler was a legitimately shitty painter. Also, you’re correct.
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Grow the mustache, you coward.
I’ve never even seen that guy with a 5 o’clock shadow or razor burn. It’s really weird.
He occasionally comes makes a rare appearance without the bronzer or without his hairspray, but never even a hint that he’s capable of growing facial hair.
He probably can’t. He need to do a comb-over using back hair.
I, too, have a list of things I love about Adolf Hitler:
- He’s long dead
- He ruined that stupid mustache for all time
3. He killed Hitler
But TBF he was also killed by Hitler, so I think that one’s a draw.
Best thing he ever did, tbh.
This will not sway republicans from voting for him.
I wonder how they’d react if “Trump” was switched with “Biden”. Or, LOL, “Obama”.
Surely Jordan Klepper or someone like him have read quotes by Trump and attributed them to Biden, Hillary, etc only to witness the hypocritical reactions
Kelpper has done something like this but, to my knowledge, not something as dramatic as this Hitler stuff.
Remember when spelling potato wrong ended a man’s political career?
Somehow, Conservatives will still find a way to justify voting for him. This would be a deal breaker in any other decade.
Baby Boomers can’t die off fast enough; it seems very reductive to blame this entire situation on them, but in simplest terms they are still the largest voting bloc and they are the last generation to swing more conservative as they aged.
Millennials and Zoomers aren’t off the hook, though. We need to not let apathy take over; every election is important, because there are those who are looking to take away your rights at every opportunity they get - and we can’t let them win, ever. For the sake of all of our futures - vote like your life depends on it, because it actually might.
