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.
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.
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.
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.
I could build a good economy too, if I redistributed wealth while saddling an entire ethnic/religious demographic with debt, forcing them in to slavery and excluding them from economic statistics. Oh, and make meth legal for the workforce.
Seizing the assets of a vast number of people is indeed a great way to prop up your economy even before you decide to use them as slave labor.
And that’s already legal in America! Hooray!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States
The thingy is, it wasn’t that good of an economy outside of the war industry. People paid for car IOUs that would build tanks, but they never got the cars. Compared to east Germany that eventually got the cars.
Yeah but those cars were Ladas
(This is my Riker’s trombone playing a sour note standard reaction)
My grandmother said similar stuff fifty years ago. She was not a very bright person to start with and in serious mental decline by her early fifties.
This will not sway republicans from voting for him.
I wonder how they’d react if “Trump” was switched with “Biden”. Or, LOL, “Obama”.
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.
Hey I’ve got a list of things I like about Hitler too! Lemme read them off to you…
- Some of his paintings are decent
- He killed Hitler
…
Wait sorry that was the entire list
. 3. He’s dead
