How Right-Wingers Are Trying to Downplay Trump’s Hitler Talk

Donald Trump’s allies are attempting to minimize the former president’s reported praise of Nazi dictator Adolf Hiter, and discredit John Kelly after the former White House chief of staff went on the record with multiple outlets regarding his concerns about Trump’s fascist ambitions. 

This week, the retired general told The New York Times that Trump fit the definition of a fascist, and would rule like a dictator if reelected. In a separate interview with The Atlantic, Kelly elaborated on past assertions that Trump expressed admiration for Hitler. Two additional sources told The Atlantic that the former president once said he wanted “the kind of generals that Hitler had,” as in “people who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.” 

The bombshell reporting has reenergized discussions of Trump’s authoritarian impulses as the election nears. On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala publicly slammed her opponent as a man who is “increasingly unhinged,” and wants a military that “will be loyal to him personally, one that will obey his orders, even when he tells them to break the law.” 

“We know what Donald Trump wants. He wants unchecked power. The question in 13 days will be what do the American people want?” Harris said.

Predictably, Trump’s loyalists have gone to work pushing excuses, from trying to discredit Kelly to claiming the former president’s authoritarian rhetoric is no big deal. 

Trump may not have known Hitler’s generals were Nazis 

On Wednesday, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade responded to Kelly’s comments by claiming that Trump was perhaps not aware that Hitler’s generals were Nazis, and just wanted to cut through red tape. 

“[Former Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis and Kelly didn’t like the president,” Kilmeade said, citing the memoir of H.R. McMaster, another former Trump administration official who’s warned of Trump’s connections to authoritarian leaders. “I can absolutely see [Trump] go, ‘It’d be great to have German generals that actually do what we ask them to do, maybe not fully being cognizant of the third rail of German generals who were Nazis or whatever,” Kilmeade said. “But he was frustrated with the slow down of commands that were not implemented.” 

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Trump’s admiration of Hitler is “baked in” to why people support him 

New Hampshire’s Republican Governor Chris Sununu claimed that Trump’s admiration was “par for the course” for the former president.

“Look, we’ve heard a lot of extreme things about Donald Trump from Donald Trump. It’s kind of par for the course. It’s really, unfortunately, uh with a guy like that, it’s kind of baked into the vote at this point,” Sununu told CNN on Wednesday. 

The Atlantic said Trump is “Literally Hitler” (They did not)

Right-wing billionaire Elon Musk — who has been campaigning (in potentially illegal ways) for Trump in key swing states — shared a screenshot of a fake headline distorting The Atlantic’s report on Kelly. “They are literally foaming at the mouth,” Musk wrote while quoting a post from another X user featuring a manipulated image with the headline “Trump Is Literally Hitler.”

On Wednesday, The Atlantic issued a press release titled “The Atlantic Did Not Publish an Article With the Headline ‘Trump Is Literally Hitler.’”

“The fake headline distorts an Atlantic article that was published on October 22, 2024, with the headline ‘Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had,’” the publication wrote. “Anyone encountering these images can quickly verify whether something is real –– or not –– by visiting The Atlantic and searching our site.” 

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The stories were planted by the Harris campaign 

Fox News’ supposedly objective “news side” anchor Bret Baier suggested on Wednesday that Vice President Harris planted The Atlantic’s story as part of her closing message against Trump. 

“It seems like Vice President Harris is closing with the threat to America from the former president,” Baier said. “You saw that Atlantic piece referencing former chief of staff John Kelly talking about how the president talked about Hitler. All of these things will be packaged together to make this closing argument that she’s making alongside former Congresswoman Liz Cheney.”

It’s a “hoax”  

Fox News’ lead primetime anchor Jesse Watters introduced his coverage of the story with a custom segment intro that blared “New Hoax Alert!” at his audience. 

“The Las Vegas Hoax Chef, Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic, has cooked up a doozy, says Trump admired Hitler. There’s no recordings of this and everyone says it’s baloney, but the VP who swallows hoaxes to go with her word salads ran to the cameras,” Watters said. 

Watters went on to claim that Kelly’s statements were being used as fodder by Democrats to encourage another assassination attempt against Trump. “In 24 hours, the highest levels of the Democrat establishment have called Trump a Nazi who should be locked up and have his throat slit. If Donald Trump wins, how are we going to have a peaceful transition? The left is saying Trump is a dictator who’s going to turn the military on them. They’re just going to hand him the keys to the White House and pretend like he’s Mitt Romney? They’re not just smearing Trump, they’re saying half the country is Hitler,” he added.

College students are the real Hitlers 

CNN’s token Republican Scott Jennings said during a Wednesday panel discussion that while he believed Kelly to be an “honorable” man, the real fascists in America are college students protesting massacres of Palestinians in Gaza. 

If Kelly is “worried about Hitler — and he’s worried about fascism —  he ought to pick up the newspaper,” Jennings said. “There’s thousands of Hitlers running around this country right now, running around college campuses, running around New York City, chasing Jewish people around, blocking their access on college campuses.” 

 “If you’re worried about Hitler and you’re talking about Donald Trump, maybe open your eyes and take in what’s happening on the American left in this country. Those are the Hitlers I’m worried about,” he added.

Kelly didn’t provide enough context 

Trump’s closest ally at Fox News, Sean Hannity, spoke to disgraced former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Wednesday, where the pair attempted to downplay Kelly’s claims. 

O’Reilly suggested to listeners that the report was unreliable because “Kelly hates Donald Trump. Everybody knows that. Kelly will admit it. He hates him. Doesn’t want him to win.” 

Hannity interjected that the reporting wasn’t “new” and that Kelly has “said this before.” 

O’Reilly went on to complain that “there’s no context to the conversation,” as reported by The Atlantic: “Nobody knows what the context is. Was it a discussion about the effectiveness of the Wehrmacht during World War II? Was that the discussion? What was the discussion? No one knows.” 

“Number two, who witnessed this, beside Kelly? No one. Okay. So you’re in territory where the haters, the Trump haters take whatever they can get and throw it out as fact,” O’Reilly added.

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Kelly should have spoken up sooner  

Failed GOP presidential candidate Doug Burgum told CNN on Thursday that if Kelly had a problem with Trump — and believed he was a fascist — he should “he could’ve said it when he was working for him 5 years ago.” 

“He could have said it when he left the White House, [but] he waits until 12 days before an election,” Burgum added.