Reports that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump praised Adolf Hitler and said he wished his military leaders were more like the German dictator’s generals have Republican candidates and elected officials publicly on the defensive in the final days before the 5 general election November.
Some Republicans chose to dispute the account of John Kelly, Trump’s former White House chief of staff. Others threw up their hands and said that voters ultimately know that Trump says outrageous things.
The former president took to his own social media site to dispute Kelly’s account on Wednesday afternoon, as well as in an interview with conservative radio personality Hugh Hewitt on Thursday.
‘Even though I shouldn’t waste my time with him, I always feel like I need to strike back in the search for THE TRUTH. John Kelly is a LOWLIFE and a bad general, whose advice I stopped seeking in the White House, and told him to move on! Trump posted about Truth Social.
In the post, he also said that Kelly “made up a story out of pure hatred of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
In his interview with HewittTrump said previous attacks on him had backfired and that his candidacies had overhauled the Republican Party.
“The Republican Party is a very big, powerful party. It used to be an elitist party with real idiots in charge,” he said.
Kelly, a former Navy general and Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, spoke to both The Atlantic and The New York Times about his concerns with Trump’s strong tendencies.
Kelly confirmed earlier reports that Trump had said Hitler “did some good things too” and that he wished his own military leaders had been like Hitler’s generals, whom Trump wrongly believed were loyal (although history showed that some had participated in assassination attempts). attempts against Hitler).
The former chief of staff also told the Times that Trump “certainly falls under the general definition of fascist.”
Vice President Kamala Harris pounced on Kelly’s comments on Wednesday, addressing them to reporters and later that day during a town hall on CNN, where she agreed that Trump is a fascist and Kelly’s statements, who are so close the election came, described as “a 911 call for the American people.”
Harris wasn’t the only Democrat to play up Kelly’s comments and use them to target his Republican opponents.
“As American citizens and voters who believe in the Constitution, these reports are a stark reminder of the stakes of this election, that Donald Trump is completely unfit to be commander in chief and should never be anywhere near the Oval Office again,” he said. Rep. . Mikie Sherrill (DN.J.) in a statement.
“Not only do these offensive comments trivialize and trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust and Hitler’s vicious mass murder of millions of Jews, they further prove why Donald Trump is unfit to serve as our country’s commander in chief,” Senator Jacky Rosen. D-Nev.), who is in a tough re-election race, said in a statement.
“I have denounced anti-Semitism and Holocaust distortion whenever it rears its ugly head, regardless of which side of the aisle it comes from, and I hope my opponent can put aside partisanship to join me in making these disturbing comments to expose,” Rosen added.
Similarly, John Avlon, the Democratic challenger to Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), made the comments in a televised debate Wednesday night, citing LaLota’s support of Trump.
“That seems quite relevant to the choices our nation faces and to the judgment my opponent perceives,” Avlon said.
LaLota accepted Trump’s claim that Kelly was wrong.
“A good journalist, an independent, honest and reliable journalist, would verify the fact before spreading some kind of rhetoric of rumors that have not yet been confirmed,” LaLota said during the debate, referring to Avlon’s past as a cable TV commentator. “The campaign has denied that, as it should. That should not be said anywhere.”
A similar approach was taken by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) during an appearance on CNN’s ‘News Central’, said he doubted the veracity of Kelly’s claims.
“It’s clear he doesn’t like President Trump. I would take that with a grain of salt, just as I would take some of the other things that have been reported and consistently debunked along these lines,” said Hagerty, who is not up for re-election this year.
Another Republican, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu, also said as much on CNN that supporters would look past Kelly’s accusation and vote for Trump anyway.
“People are willing to say, look, I don’t like his style, I don’t like his approach, I don’t like the things he says, but if we can get a Republican mentality out of Washington that says come first place as an individual, not as a large government. States’ rights are important, regulatory reforms, we’re going to eliminate regulations. We are going to make it a little easier in terms of costs. We are going to tackle inflation,” Sununu said.
“Things are that bad,” he added.
