Trump: 'I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had'

[Uncle Joe]

The Republican nominee’s preoccupation with dictators, and his disdain for the American military, is deepening.

By Jeffrey Goldberg

(snip)

Retired General Barry McCaffrey, a decorated Vietnam veteran, told me that Trump does not comprehend such traditional military virtues as honor and self-sacrifice. “The military is a foreign country to him. He doesn’t understand the customs or codes,” McCaffrey said. “It doesn’t penetrate. It starts with the fact that he thinks it’s foolish to do anything that doesn’t directly benefit himself.”

(snip)

In their book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser reported that Trump asked John Kelly, his chief of staff at the time, “Why can’t you be like the German generals?” Trump, at various points, had grown frustrated with military officials he deemed disloyal and disobedient. (Throughout the course of his presidency, Trump referred to flag officers as “my generals.”) According to Baker and Glasser, Kelly explained to Trump that German generals “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off.” This correction did not move Trump to reconsider his view: “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” the president responded.

This week, I asked Kelly about their exchange. He told me that when Trump raised the subject of “German generals,” Kelly responded by asking, “‘Do you mean Bismarck’s generals?’” He went on: “I mean, I knew he didn’t know who Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War. 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.’ I explained to him that Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler.” Kelly told me Trump was not acquainted with Rommel.

(snip)

Kelly—a retired Marine general who, as a young man, had volunteered to serve in Vietnam despite actually suffering from bone spurs—said in an interview for the CNN reporter Jim Sciutto’s book, The Return of Great Powers, that Trump praised aspects of Hitler’s leadership. “He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things,’” Kelly recalled. “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.” Kelly admonished Trump: “I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing.’”

(snip)

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/trump-military-generals-hitler/680327/

[TommyT139]

1. No paywall link

https://archive.is/3MbBx

[TwilightZone]

2. A bit more from the "Generals" conversation, from NBC in 2022:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219595258

[Blue Owl]

3. How about you blow your goddamned brains out like Hitler did, Donny

[LymphocyteLover]

4. John Kelly is now on tape saying that Trump had praised Hitler on several occasions.

Link to tweet

[Uncle Joe]

5. I've been flipping the channel to FOX "News" periodically for a few minutes at a time (that's about all I can stand)

just to see if they're covering this story but it's been crickets from the Goebbels Group so far.

However they did show *rump's photo op in a closed McDonald's as if that demonstrated his understanding of people that actually work for a living.

They're totally ignoring the warnings from the highest military members of the former *rump administration on matters of national security.

FOX "News;" Profiles in cowardice.

[LymphocyteLover]

6. FoxNews is fucking evil... they've been the absolute worst in propping up this monster

[UpInArms]

7. This entire article should be read aloud on every airwave available

In every classroom … in every town meeting … at every opportunity

Edited to add

On separate occasions in 2020, Trump held private conversations in the White House with national-security officials about the George Floyd protests. “The Chinese generals would know what to do,” he said, according to former officials who described the conversations to me, referring to the leaders of the People’s Liberation Army, which carried out the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. (Pfeiffer denied that Trump said this.) Trump’s desire to deploy U.S. troops against American citizens is well documented. During the nerve-racking period of social unrest following Floyd’s death, Trump asked Milley and Esper, a West Point graduate and former infantry officer, if the Army could shoot protesters. “Trump seemed unable to think straight and calmly,” Esper wrote in his memoir. “The protests and violence had him so enraged that he was willing to send in active-duty forces to put down the protesters. Worse yet, he suggested we shoot them. I wondered about his sense of history, of propriety, and of his oath to the Constitution.” Esper told National Public Radio in 2022, “We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at General Milley, and said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?’” When defense officials argued against Trump’s desire, the president screamed, according to witnesses, “You are all fucking losers!”