Playing the Hitler Card: Will Trump Supporters Reject John Kelly's Attack?

Earlier this year, there were rumors in the media about when the Biden campaign would go “full Hitler.”

This meant that if they started talking about Donald Trump and the Nazi leader so early, what ammunition would they have left for October?

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Well, it's the end of October and the Hitler attack has begun.

It's not like no one has heard this before. Trump's critics across the media have regularly compared him to Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini. He was pictured in magazines with a small mustache. He was dismissed as an aspiring dictator who would blow up American democracy without the guardrails that constrained him in his first term.

But now we have John Kelly, his second chief of staff, denouncing his ex-boss in a series of three official interviews with The New York Times that were recorded and posted on the paper's website.

CNN commentator Scott Jennings addressed former Trump chief of staff John Kelly's claim that former President Trump once spoke favorably about Hitler in comments that Trump has refuted. (CNN)

Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who lost a son in Afghanistan, said he was going public because he was disturbed by Trump's attacks on “the enemy within,” which the former president told me in our weekend interview included Adam Schiff and Adam Schiff belonged to Nancy Pelosi. And Kelly was equally concerned about using the military against Americans.

Kelly says in the Times audio that Trump meets his definition of a fascist. And in the context of wanting his generals (like Kelly and Pentagon chief Jim Mattis) to remain personally loyal to him, “he commented more than once, 'You know, Hitler did some good things too.'”

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Kelly said he told the president, “You should never say that,” and explained some of the history of Nazi Germany. (Hitler's generals tried to kill him more than once.)

The general also said that Trump called the soldiers “losers” and “suckers” and could not understand their sacrifice. If these and other passages sound familiar, it is because they have already been reported in the Atlantic and elsewhere, obviously with Kelly as a background source.

Enten found Trump's gains among independent voters in key swing states notable and a good sign for his campaign. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded by saying the former official had spread “debunked stories,” “screwed himself” and suffered from Trump deangement syndrome.

My question is: Will John Kelly's comments change the minds of some Trump voters?

You might dismiss the comments as old news. Or say Trump didn't really mean it, he was just blowing off steam. Or question Kelly's motivation for going public in the final stretch of the campaign.

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It's not that I'm defending the comments of Kelly, who is free to say whatever he wants. I have absolutely nothing good to say about Hitler or the Nazis. I don't agree with everything Trump says, just like I don't agree with everything Kamala Harris says.

But how many Trump voters will abandon him now, after nine years of media attacks on the 45th president and watching the violence of Jan. 6? In my opinion there are very few answers.

U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks at a wake party after a presidential debate with former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at Cherry Street Pier in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Still, it gave the vice president a chance, as yesterday's bombshell was detonated by a man who was the highest-ranking staffer in the Trump White House. She read a statement to reporters in Washington without asking questions:

“It is deeply disturbing and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans. “All of this is further evidence to the American people of who Donald Trump really is,” Harris said.

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I once had a candid conversation with Kelly at a media party at the White House, and when I looked up there were ten other reporters standing around us, listening intently to what the man who was keeping a low profile with the press had to say. At the time, the former Homeland Security secretary was touted as the man who would bring military discipline to a chaotic White House following the firing of Reince Priebus.

Now the moment of “full Hitler” has come. Whether it will have much impact on a candidate who has survived two impeachment trials, the post-January 6 fallout and two assassination attempts is at least doubtful.