The morning after The New York Times and The Atlantic reported that former President Donald Trump had praised history’s most famous monster, Adolf Hitler, and suggested he wanted U.S. military leaders to be more “like the German generals,” the morning show of Trump’s favorite network went into overtime to defend the GOP presidential nominee.
“I can absolutely see him going, ‘Now, you know what, it would be great to have German generals that actually do what we ask them to do’ — knowing that’s a third — maybe not fully being cognizant of the third rail of German generals who were Nazis and whatever,” “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade said on Wednesday’s show.
On Tuesday, the Times and The Atlantic published stories with interviews from Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, in which Kelly described alleged instances where Trump, as president, praised Hitler and what he understood to be the structures of the Nazi regime. “He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too,’” Kelly told the Times.
In The Atlantic, the focus was on Trump’s desire to command the military’s unquestioning obedience. Kelly told the magazine that when he asked Trump what he meant when the president said “Why can’t you be like the German generals,” Trump confirmed that he meant the generals of Nazi Germany.
“I knew he didn’t know who [Otto von] Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War,” Kelly told The Atlantic. “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.’”
In statements, the Trump campaign denied the comments, calling The Atlantic’s reporting “dishonest” and telling the Times that Kelly had “beclowned” himself.
The “Fox & Friends” hosts also tried to justify Trump’s apparent desire for unquestioned military authority by comparing it to his business experience.
“He’s also from a world where his company is huge, but it’s a family company. So when he asked Eric [Trump] or somebody to do something, they do it. It’s not even publicly traded. He doesn’t even have board members,” said Kilmeade. “All of a sudden, now he’s like, ‘Do this. What do you mean you can’t do it? Do this. What do you mean you can’t do it? What do you mean I’m not allowed to do it?’ And after a while, while being investigated, there were probably times when he [said], ‘Wouldn’t it be great if generals actually listened?’” (By the way, Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, has been found guilty of financial fraud stretching back years.)
It’s not actually true that Hitler’s generals showed him unquestioning loyalty. In fact, the most famous attempt to assassinate Hitler, Operation Valkyrie — which is even the subject of a Tom Cruise movie — was led by Nazi military officers, as Kelly himself said he pointed out to Trump.
Nor is it accurate, as Kilmeade seemed to imply Wednesday morning, that adherence to Nazi ideology was somehow a peripheral aspect of life in the military command structure of Third Reich Germany, which was tasked with carrying out the Nazi agenda.
Trump has long been known to have an admiration for authoritarianism, and has explicitly said he wouldn’t be a dictator in a potential second term “except for day one” — hardly a reassuring statement.
As Trump campaigns for a second term, his own rhetoric and stances have grown increasingly authoritarian and anti-democratic — including suggesting terminating the U.S. Constitution, suggesting he will send the military after people who oppose him politically, and promising mass deportations, among other things. And that list doesn’t even include Trump’s attempt to overturn his loss in the 2020 election, which culminated in his incitement of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Both Kelly and retired U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, who served as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the latter half of Trump’s term, have said they believe Trump to be a fascist.
“I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist,” Milley previously told journalist Bob Woodward.