Did Donald Trump praise Hitler? What we know

On Tuesday, The Atlantic published an article by its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, in which he claimed that Donald Trump once said during his term as president: “I need the kind of generals Hitler had. People who were completely loyal to him and followed orders.”

Goldberg attributed this report to “two people who heard him say it” and also quoted John Kelly, Trump's White House chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, who said the then-president expressed admiration for the loyalty of “Hitler's generals.” brought.

Trump spokesman Alex Pfeiffer called the report “absolutely false,” adding, “President Trump never said that.”

In an interview with The New York Times Kelly said Tuesday: “The former president is certainly on the far right side, he's definitely an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators – that's what he said. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist.” “

Kelly also claimed he said, “You know, Hitler did some good things too.”

“He said more than once, 'You know, Hitler did some good things too,'” Kelly said The New York Times.

The claims were denied by Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung in a statement The New York Times said Kelly was spreading “debunked stories.”

Newsweek emailed Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign representatives for comment outside of regular office hours on Wednesday.

The allegations come at a time when poll analysis suggests the 2024 presidential election remains a tense area. The website FiveThirtyEight gives Democratic candidate Kamala Harris a 1.7-point lead over Trump in its latest poll average released Tuesday. However, the website states that Trump has an overall 52 percent chance of winning in November, compared to 48 percent against Harris.

Senior Democrats have suggested that a second Trump term could pose a threat to American democracy, with Harris recently calling the Republican nominee “unstable” and “dangerous,” while one of her recent ads said in voiceover: “If he wins, he will” I will ignore any checks that limit a president's power. Trump denied that claim and hit back that the threat to U.S. democracy comes from another Democratic administration.

Said journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in their 2022 book The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021 that Trump asked Kelly, “Why can’t you be like the German generals?” When Kelly replied that German generals “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost succeeded,” Trump is said to have replied, “No, no , no, they were completely loyal to him.”

Kelly reported separately on the “German generals” conversation with Goldberg. The chief of staff said he replied, “Do you mean (Otto von) Bismarck’s generals?”

He added: “I mean, I knew he didn't know who (19th-century German chancellor) Bismarck was or knew anything about the Franco-Prussian War. I said, 'Do you mean the emperor's generals? Surely you can't mean that.' Hitler's generals? And he said, “Yes, yes, Hitler's generals.” I explained to him that (Field Marshal Erwin) Rommel had to commit suicide after he took part in a conspiracy against Hitler.

Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, John Bolton, Trump's former White House national security adviser, said he believed Kelly's report.

Bolton said: “You can take what John says to the bank.”

“When John says Donald Trump said them, I implicitly believe them.”

Donald Trump on Nazi rally comparisons

During the 2016 election campaign, then-Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto condemned Trump's “shrill” rhetoric, adding: “That's how Mussolini got in, that's how Hitler got in.”

At a 2016 rally in Orlando, Trump asked his supporters to raise their right arms and pledge to vote for him. This led to condemnation from Abe Foxman, former national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who said: “As a Jew who survived the Holocaust, I saw an audience of thousands of people raise their hands in something that looked like a 'Heil Hitler' salute looks like.” is about as offensive, vile and disgusting as anything I would ever experience in the United States of America.”

As recently as 2016, JD Vance, now Trump's vice presidential running mate, reportedly sent a text message to a friend that said, “I'm torn between thinking that Trump is a cynical idiot like Nixon who wouldn't be (and might even be) so bad prove useful) or that he is America's Hitler.

Does Donald Trump have a copy of “Mein Kampf”?

In 1990 vanity Fair reported that Ivana Trump, Donald Trump's late first wife, told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that her husband had kept a book of Hitler's collected speeches entitled My new orderin a cupboard next to his bed and read it regularly.

When I was challenged about it Vanity Fair Reporter Marie Brenner reportedly responded to Trump: “Actually, it was my friend Marty Davis at Paramount who gave me a copy My fightand he is Jewish.”

Brenner then asked Davis about it, who reportedly said, “I gave him a book about Hitler,” Davis told her. “But that was it.” My new orderHitler's speeches, not My fight. I thought he would find it interesting. I'm his friend, but I'm not Jewish.