New book by WSJ reporter, exposes how trump praised hitler in front of Kelly

[JohnSJ]

"Trump 'stunned' chief of staff John Kelly by praising Hitler: new book

Former president Donald Trump "stunned" his then-chief of staff John Kelly by praising Adolf Hitler, according to a new book.

The Guardian obtained a copy of the forthcoming book, "Frankly, We Did Win This Election," by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender, which reported the twice-impeached one-term president's remark while on a visit to Europe to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.

"Well, Hitler did a lot of good things," Trump told Kelly, according to the book.

Trump made the remark after Kelly "reminded the president which countries were on which side during the conflict" and "connected the dots from the first world war to the second world war and all of Hitler's atrocities," Bender reported.

The former president denied making the remark about Hitler, according to Bender, but he also wrote that sources said that Kelly "told the president that he was wrong, but Trump was undeterred" and praised the German economic recovery under Hitler during the 1930s.

Kelly pushed back, saying that "German people would have been better off poor than subjected to the Nazi genocide."

Even if Germany's economy recovered after the Nazis took over in 1933, Kelly told Trump, "you cannot ever say anything supportive of Adolf Hitler. You just can't."

https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-hitler/

[EYESORE 9001]

1. This revelation comes to light in a fucking BOOK?!?

What in pluperfect hell is wrong with Kelly that he didn’t get in front of cameras right then and let the public find out what a POS his boss was? His purported ‘push back’ was weak sauce. Any worthy response would have included the words, ‘I quit!’

[Diamond_Dog]

6. ++++

[Hugin]

16. I hear you.

This is the monetization of disaster.

It's like after a bad breakup and all of your 'friends' take you aside and tell you what your former was up to the whole time.

Spare me.

[cally]

31. Yes!

All of them are complicit in Trump and GOP fascism.

[Fyrefox]

2. Completely believable...

Trump’s remarks in praise of Hitler are completely believable given that he admired and catered to dictators in Russia and Korea. His followers would also apparently embrace an autocrat with fascist stylings over a democratic leader, and Trump would be all too happy to play that role...

[True Blue American]

5. Trump tried to be

Like Hitler. Our strong Government stopped him.

[Azathoth]

3. Kelly has to be the lowest coward to have ever waddled through Washington

He outright knew this lunatic was a Hitler-curious fascist, and he still stood up each day and attacked his critics with lies and propaganda points.

At least most of the other people in Trump's orbit have the excuse that they are genuinely as deranged as he is in one way or another. But Kelly seems to have been clear-eyed and completely spineless.

He may actually become the true villain in future movies about this dumpster fire.

[FakeNoose]

4. Now we know one of the reasons why he hated Chump

I'm sure there were many more reasons, but he chooses to keep them private.

[Johnny2X2X]

7. Reminder, Trump owned Nazi book and admitted it

Trump kept a book of Hitler's speeches next to his bed in his Manhattan apartment.

Hitler destroyed the German economy, he did little good. It's a myth that Hitler ran the country well, same myth as Mussolini making the "trains run on time." Nazi Germany and Italy under Mussolini's fascism were both similar to Trump's government, they were all corrupt, inefficient and Kakistocracies. Governed by the worst and the most incompetent.

I doubt Trump read anything telling him Hitler had turned the German economy around though, he doesn't read, at all, he was probably told that by one of the Neo Nazis in his White House.

And Kelly is another in a long list of cowards who failed to stop Trump.

[JohnSJ]

9. Yup. From what I heard he kept a copy of mein kampf at his bedside

[Johnny2X2X]

10. It wasn't Mein Kampf

It was a collection of Hitler's speeches.

[JohnSJ]

15. Thanks for the correction

[madaboutharry]

8. It was clear early on that Trump has the soul of a Nazi.

We have already known from his own statements about women, especially black women, that Kelly is a racist and a misogynist himself. Now we also know he is a coward and a weakling. He should have resigned the minute he heard Trump say this.

[Johnny2X2X]

11. Yes

He should have resigned and immediately called a press conference to explain why he's resigning during which he calls for trump to be removed from office.

I wonder if that's how Hitler came to consolidate his power too, a bunch of cowards around him to concerned with their own careers to sound an alarm.

[peggysue2]

26. That's exactly how Hitler came to power on a wave of populist fervor

The aristocratic right thought Hitler was a clown but gave tepid approval thinking they could use him for their own purposes, a push to power. A lot of them were assassinated after the fact. Others followed the flow for career and personal safety issues; those that didn't either left the country or were quickly snuffed out.

And then, there were the true believers, those willing to follow Hitler to Hell.

It's a scary parallel to follow bc it underscores what could have easily happened had Donald Trump been smarter, more competent and/or had maliciously clever, more politically savvy people surrounding him. An army of Steve Bannon clones, for instance.

We dodged that bullet by a hair. But it's not over yet bc the Republican Party (purged and purified) has given up on democracy and is all in for Trumpism. The path to power by any means.

That is the continuing fight.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

12. Wasn't it revealed before 2016...

... that Trump's only known book at his home was a collection of Hitler's speeches?

Then many people speculated he was too mentally lazy to ever read it.

Looked it up again, and here's one of the references:

Donald Trump's ex-wife once said Trump kept a book of Hitler's speeches by his bed
https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-ex-wife-once-said-he-kept-a-book-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bed-2015-8

According to a 1990 Vanity Fair interview, Ivana Trump once told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that her husband, real-estate mogul Donald Trump, now a leading Republican presidential candidate, kept a book of Hitler's speeches near his bed.

"Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed ... Hitler's speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist," Marie Brenner wrote.

... After Trump and Brenner changed topics, Trump returned to the subject and reportedly said, "If, I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them."

In the Vanity Fair article, Ivana Trump told a friend that her husband's cousin, John Walter "clicks his heels and says, 'Heil Hitler," when visiting Trump's office.

[PatSeg]

24. I can picture Trump admiring Hitler

and maybe even having a book of Hitler's speeches, but I really can't picture him reading anything more complex than a comic strip.

[NQCowboy68]

13. Kelly is a gutless piece of shit

[mucifer]

14. I wonder if jared was praising hitler, too. Wouldn't surprise me. So Much Evil!

[Taylor Picker]

17. Let us not forget

that it was also John Kelly who was with Trump at Arlington National Cemetery--at the grave of Kelly's son, no less--when Trump asked "what's in it for them?" and called soldiers “suckers” and “losers.” Kelly never came forward to confirm or deny any of this.

The best he can do is leak these stories to journalists. It's cowardice.

[Johnny2X2X]

18. Trump gets away with it all

This will be another blip.

Can you imagine if Hillary had been reported to had said something like this? It would have been the lead story on all the major networks for a year.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

20. Only ONE incident from her like the myriad from Trump...

... would've received 24 hours a day of outrage from Fox, with other media outlets also covering it for the sake of not being "biased".

[KS Toronado]

21. And 10 investigations by reQublicans in congress.

[Politicub]

22. This is certainly the way things are trending

The GOP is Trump, or an extension of Trump. They’re going to protect him regardless if he is charged with anything or not.

[Kid Berwyn]

19. At Arlington, Trump asked Kelly: "What's in it for them?"

Kelly’s son is buried in Arlington.

[Peppertoo]

23. Why didn't Kelly quit?

[thesquanderer]

30. best spin: afraid of how much worse things could be, depending on who replaced him (n/t)

[Peppertoo]

32. Maybe.

[modrepub]

25. Some Thoughts

I'm not really that surprised. As repugnant as this is, there are a significant number of folks who probably wouldn't disagree with TFG's statement on Hitler. And as many folks who would echo what Kelly said about talking about Hitler.

These points of view make me think most of us know very little about Hitler, his thoughts, governing style or the consequences of his actions. We all "know" he was bad so move along and let's not talk about it any more.

I've read Mein Kamph. It's a bear to read. Very monotonous, repetitive and dry. But it's also unnerving at times. His praise of American eugenics, race laws and segregation hits too close to home. His opinions on the world Jewish problem can still be faintly heard today. This argument was more of a shadowy paranoid proposition of back-door elitists (who had to be Jewish) who were controlling all facets of life to the detriment of hard working folks. Sound familiar?? (I still wonder if Lucy's "big Eastern syndicate" comment on the Charlie Brown Christmas special is a back-door Anti-Semitic comment)

Hitler's governing style (survival of the fittest, pitting his subordinates against one another) and his absolute belief that the Jews were the power behind the communists, particularly the USSR (Judeo–Bolshevism), was in the end his undoing.

I think we'd be better off if we had more open discussions on the 2 points of view these men present. But we won't because it's too difficult and probably too jarring. And in the end, we will never confront the ongoing true legacy of the Hitleresque thoughts that are probably still echoing today.

[BGBD]

27. Hard to believe that

Trump knows anything about German economics under Hitler or before.

Maybe he just repeated what Stephen Miller told him.

[fishwax]

28. if Kelly was surprised then he must not have been paying attention

[TheFarseer]

29. I was curious about Hitler's German economy

And I found that they massively increased military spending(duh), increased infrastructure spending, privatized everything possible and did massive deficit spending to pay for it. Sounds strangely Republican except for infrastructure. They also forced banks etc to buy government bonds and occasionally requisitioned savings accounts to pay for their spending. They also hiked tariffs which caused shortages. None of this sounds great to me except the infrastructure spending.

[roamer65]

33. Dump is like a cheap knockoff of Mussolini.

Mussolini was a Hitler sycophant as well.

Cheeto Benito.

Dumpolini.

Mango Mussolini.