Donald Trump’s longest-serving White House chief of staff called out his former boss and said Trump fits the dictionary definition of a fascist. Just two weeks before the election — a tight race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris — John Kelly said Trump used to speak admiringly of Adolf Hitler and would seek to govern as a dictator.
“It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterised by a dictatorial leader, centralised autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” Kelly said.
“Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”
Who is John Kelly and what’s his beef with Donald Trump?
Kelly joined the Marine Corps in 1970 and led the Multinational Force-West in Iraq during the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency. In 2016, he retired as a four-star general and was asked by Donald Trump to serve as his Secretary of Homeland Security. After six months, John Kelly became the Chief of Staff.
About a year later reports claimed Kelly started calling Trump an idiot though Kelly did noy acknowledge that. In 2018, Trump replaced Kelly but was all praises about him.
After leaving Trump’s administration, John Kelly started to criticize him and Trump too spoke ill of him. Trump said the Chief of Staff post was not for him. “He came in with a bang, went out with a whimper, but like so many X’s, he misses the action & just can’t keep his mouth shut,” Trump once wrote.
On Capitol Riots, John Kelly said he would support using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.
In 2023, Kelly exposed that Trump disparaged American soldiers wounded and Killed in combat — and he privately called Marines ‘su**ers’ for getting killed.
What John Kelly said about Trump in NYT interview
- John Kelly said it’s a very dangerous thing to have the wrong person elected to high office.
- Trump meets the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the concept of rule of law, Kelly said. “Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he said.
- Trump made admiring statements about Hitler, had expressed contempt for disabled veterans.
Trump’s campaign called Kelly a clown after his claimed. Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said the stories that Kelly said have been debunked by the White House and Kelly had “beclowned” himself.
