signalmankenneth
Verified User
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]CNN — [/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]To Donald Trump, Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán is “fantastic,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping is “brilliant,” North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is “an OK guy,” and, most alarmingly, he allegedly said Adolf Hitler “did some good things,” a worldview that would reverse decades-old US foreign policy in a second term should he win November’s presidential election, multiple former senior advisers told CNN.
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]“He thought Putin was an OK guy and Kim was an OK guy — that we had pushed North Korea into a corner,” retired Gen. John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, told me. “To him, it was like we were goading these guys. ‘If we didn’t have NATO, then Putin wouldn’t be doing these things.’”
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]Trump’s lavish praise for Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán while hosting him at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, just days after all but sealing the Republican nomination on Super Tuesday, shows it’s a worldview he’s doubling down on.
[/FONT][FONT=cnn_sans_display]“There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán,” Trump said, adding, “He’s the boss and he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world, they respect him.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]The former president’s admiration for autocrats has been reported on before, but in comments by Trump recounted to me for my new book, “The Return of Great Powers,” out Tuesday, Kelly and others who served under Trump give new insight into why they warn that a man who consistently praises autocratic leaders opposed to US interests is ill-suited to lead the country in the Great Power clashes that could be coming, telling me they believe that the root of his admiration for these figures is that he envies their power.
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]“He views himself as a big guy,” John Bolton, who served as national security adviser under Trump, told me. “He likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like Erdogan in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. He kind of likes that.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]“He’s not a tough guy by any means, but in fact quite the opposite,” Kelly said. “But that’s how he envisions himself.”
[/FONT]Alleged praise for Hitler
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]Trump allegedly reserved some of his most unnerving praise for Hitler, who led Nazi Germany during World War II.
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]“He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things.’ 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 recounted.
“I mean, Mussolini was a great guy in comparison.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]“It’s pretty hard to believe he missed the Holocaust, though, and pretty hard to understand how he missed the 400,000 American GIs that were killed in the European theater,” Kelly told me. “But I think it’s more, again, the tough guy thing.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]Trump’s admiration for Hitler went further than the German leader’s economic policies, according to Kelly. Trump also expressed admiration for Hitler’s hold on senior Nazi officers. Trump lamented that Hitler, as Kelly recounted, maintained his senior staff’s “loyalty,” while Trump himself often did not.
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]“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 recalled. “He truly believed, when he brought us generals in, that we would be loyal — that we would do anything he wanted us to do,” Kelly told me.
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]When asked to respond to the allegations from the former Trump administration officials, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung did not comment on the substance of what they told me but stated, “John Kelly and John Bolton have completely beclowned themselves and are suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. They need to seek professional help because their hatred is consuming their empty lives.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]In 2021, a spokeswoman for Trump denied allegations that the former president had praised Hitler.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/11/politics/trump-despots-advisers-sound-alarm/index.html
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]To Donald Trump, Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán is “fantastic,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping is “brilliant,” North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is “an OK guy,” and, most alarmingly, he allegedly said Adolf Hitler “did some good things,” a worldview that would reverse decades-old US foreign policy in a second term should he win November’s presidential election, multiple former senior advisers told CNN.
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]“He thought Putin was an OK guy and Kim was an OK guy — that we had pushed North Korea into a corner,” retired Gen. John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff, told me. “To him, it was like we were goading these guys. ‘If we didn’t have NATO, then Putin wouldn’t be doing these things.’”
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]Trump’s lavish praise for Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán while hosting him at Mar-a-Lago on Friday, just days after all but sealing the Republican nomination on Super Tuesday, shows it’s a worldview he’s doubling down on.
[/FONT][FONT=cnn_sans_display]“There’s nobody that’s better, smarter or a better leader than Viktor Orbán,” Trump said, adding, “He’s the boss and he’s a great leader, fantastic leader. In Europe and around the world, they respect him.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]The former president’s admiration for autocrats has been reported on before, but in comments by Trump recounted to me for my new book, “The Return of Great Powers,” out Tuesday, Kelly and others who served under Trump give new insight into why they warn that a man who consistently praises autocratic leaders opposed to US interests is ill-suited to lead the country in the Great Power clashes that could be coming, telling me they believe that the root of his admiration for these figures is that he envies their power.
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]“He views himself as a big guy,” John Bolton, who served as national security adviser under Trump, told me. “He likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like Erdogan in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. He kind of likes that.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]“He’s not a tough guy by any means, but in fact quite the opposite,” Kelly said. “But that’s how he envisions himself.”
[/FONT]Alleged praise for Hitler
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]Trump allegedly reserved some of his most unnerving praise for Hitler, who led Nazi Germany during World War II.
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]“He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things.’ 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 recounted.
“I mean, Mussolini was a great guy in comparison.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]“It’s pretty hard to believe he missed the Holocaust, though, and pretty hard to understand how he missed the 400,000 American GIs that were killed in the European theater,” Kelly told me. “But I think it’s more, again, the tough guy thing.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]Trump’s admiration for Hitler went further than the German leader’s economic policies, according to Kelly. Trump also expressed admiration for Hitler’s hold on senior Nazi officers. Trump lamented that Hitler, as Kelly recounted, maintained his senior staff’s “loyalty,” while Trump himself often did not.
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]“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 recalled. “He truly believed, when he brought us generals in, that we would be loyal — that we would do anything he wanted us to do,” Kelly told me.
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]When asked to respond to the allegations from the former Trump administration officials, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung did not comment on the substance of what they told me but stated, “John Kelly and John Bolton have completely beclowned themselves and are suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. They need to seek professional help because their hatred is consuming their empty lives.”
[/FONT]
[FONT=cnn_sans_display]In 2021, a spokeswoman for Trump denied allegations that the former president had praised Hitler.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/11/politics/trump-despots-advisers-sound-alarm/index.html
[/FONT]
Last edited: