As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator

Among the number of top officials that met privately with President Donald J. Trump, few were more secluded within the White House than the former Marine general John F. Kelly, the president’s longest serving chief of staff.

As Election Day neared, and after Mr. Kelly became alarmed by criticisms of Mr. Trump’s comments, both recent and historical, about deploying the military against domestic protesters, he was willing to do three videotaped, on the record interviews with a New York Times reporter about the former president is character and fitness for office.

Mr. Kelly was homeland security secretary under Mr. Trump before joining the White House in July 2017. He sought to execute Mr. Trump’s policies for almost eighteen months. It was a time for which he obtained criticism by his own results inside the party and became disillusioned as well as distressed by acts by the president that, in his view, were improper and lacking any Constitutional sense.

As I have pointed out in the previous interviews, Mr. Kelly went more in depth about his worries and more emphatically said that the people should also mind about the fitness and character of the president than issue of the matter.

“On some of them I would concur with some of his polices he stated categorically he is not supporting any candidate since he is also come from the armed forces.” “But again, it’s a very dangerous thing to have the wrong person elected to high office.”

He said that, in his opinion, Mr. Trump is a fascist, would rule as a dictator if he could, and knows no more about the Constitution than the idea of it.

He reconsidered and talked about other reports that Mr. Trump had spoken favorably about Hitler, had had contempt for disabled veterans and had deemed those who died during the fight for the United States as ‘losers’ and ‘suckers,’ the information which deemed to come out in The Atlantic back in 2020.

Mr. Trump’s spokesperson for his campaign, Steven Cheung, criticised Mr. Kelly in a statement, describing the stories that Mr. Kelly told of his time at the White House as “debunked stories” and said that Mr. Kelly had “beclowned” himself.

Below are parts of, and an audio recording of, Mr. Kelly’s statement.

In response, Kelly said that upon his understanding of fascism, Trump fit the definition of a ‘fascist.’

To a question of whether he believed Mr. Trump was a fascist, Mr. Kelly first recited definition of a fascist that he had gleaned from the Internet.

“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It is a political extreme right wing nationalist, authoritarian, party dictatorship call it an autocracy system, militancy in governance, hates opposition, subscribing to the idea of original inherent stratified society, he said.

He quotes Mr. Kelly as saying that definition applied to Mr. Trump to the letter.

“Surely, therefore, those are the kind of things that he believes would be more effectively run in America,” concluded Mr. Kelly.

He added: Well of course, the former president is way far right, he is authoritarian for sure, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. Yeah, so if the latter is to be the general definition of fascist then he certainly falls into this category for sure.

They now know that Trump was frustrated with restrictions on his authority, as told to Kelly.

“He certainly likes the dictator way of doing things,” Mr. Kelly told me.

That Mr. Trump “never accepted the fact that he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world — and by power, I mean an ability to do anything he wanted, anytime he wanted,” Mr. Kelly said.

“There are some reports that the old man would like the boy to be just like he was in business – tell people to do things and they would do it: and not bother too much about such legalities as — and such like…” he said.

He stated that Trump has recently said things about using the military to surpass its opponents at home.

When Mr. Kelly left the White House at the end of 2019, he said he he would not engage in on the record comment except where he believed Mr. Trump had said something quite improper related to him and that was demonstrably false.

The author spoke out after Mr. Trump recently made comments about deploying the military against what he deemed the ‘enemy within.’

“And I think this use of the military on — to go after — American citizens is one of those things I think is a very, very bad thing — even to say it for political purposes to get elected — I think it’s a very, very bad thing, let alone actually doing it,” Mr. Kelly said.

Mr. Kelly said that dating back to his first year in office, he had to explain to the president, why is it that you should not use the U.S military against Americans and what are the constraints on that authority?? Although told, Mr. Trump did not desist from pushing this issue while in office and was still claiming, I actually do have that authority while I am still in office, according to Mr. Kelly.

“Originally, conversation would be: Mr. President, that’s extramural or you know that’s mundane, you really do not want to do it within the United States,” he said. “But now that he’s talking about it as ‘I’m gonna do it’ is, again, it’s disturbing.”

He said he felt Trump was unique in that he appeared not to know history or the constitution of the country.

Mr. Kelly nailed Mr. Trump as somebody who does not have the basic understanding on what it means to be an American or be a president.

“He’s of course the only president we have seen to have all but rejected what it means to be America, and what makes America; The Constitution, and Values by which one looks at everything including family and government- he has been of course the only president I know and perhaps in my lifetime that was such a president,” Mr. Kelly concluded.

“He just does not grasp the values — he postures, he speaks — he knows more about America than any man alive but he does not.”

He said Trump wanted individuals to give allegiance directly to him over and above following the constitution.

Speaking in the interview, the former chief of staff of Mr. Trump in the summer of 2017 said that he had to council the then president that he and other other members of the government where sworn into uphold the Constitution and thus were not going to be loyal to the president if the Constitution requested otherwise.

Mr. Kelly said Mr. Trump pursued him on that pledge, and appeared not to realise that senior staff were meant put the pledge to the Constitution — and the rule of law — first.

“I remember discussing it with him — it was something he knew nothing about, I believe is the best way to describe it, and I am not sure he ever really came to grips with it.”

Getting to the point where Mr. Kelly proclaimed that personal loyalty “is virtually everything to him.”

But according to Mr. Kelly, once one of those individuals loses that loyalty, they are as far as Mr. Trump is concerned “dead to him” and ‘your time is short.’

Mr. Trump, Mr. Kelly said, never grasped that uniformed and retired senior generals he drew into his orbit would be loyal to him above all else.

“Well, of course, one more shock to him, as I remember, at the beginning of the administration he went on about ‘his generals’,” Mr. Kelly said. “I don’t know why he thought that — but then a very big surprise for him was that we were — those of us who were former generals and certainly people still on active duty — that the commitment, the loyalty was to the Constitution, without question, without second thought.”

Mr. Kelly added: “That was a big surprise to him that the generals were not loyal to the boss in this case him.”

He said Trump told him that “Hitler did some good things.”

Speaking to The New York Times, Mr. Kelly corroborated earlier accounts that Mr. Trump had praised Hitler in the past more than once.

‘You know, Hitler did some good things too’ and he said this not once or twice,” Mr. Kelly said of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Kelly said that Mr. Trump had little appreciation for history — ‘I think he’s lacking in that,’ he said — but said that he would still try to explain to Mr. Trump why those comments about Hitler were problematic.

“First of all, you should never say that,” responded Mr. Kelly, who said he told Mr. Trump. “But if you know the meaning of what Hitler was from the start to the end of his life, then just about everything the man was doing was promoting racist fascist philosophy, you know, so nothing that this man did was good — it was definitely not done for the right purpose.”

Mr. Kelly stated that, for most people, that would suffice to bring an end to the discussion. However, Mr. Trump would occasionally revive that topic again.

Kelly said that Trump despised people who get crippled on the battle field.

To a question of previous stories about Mr.Trump, showing disdain towards disabled veterans, Mr.Kelly answered that Trump did not want to be seen in public with the disabled persons who lost their limbs in battlefields.

“Definitely him not wanting to be associated with amputees —amputees who lost their limbs for this country fighting for every American including him to protect them, but he would not want to be seen with any of them. That is an interesting view for the commander in chief to have.”

“He would just say: ‘You know what,’ ‘it just does not look good for me.’”.

He said Trump referred to service members who were injured or killed as “losers and suckers,” although Trump and some of his employees have denied such accounts.

In corroboration of what he told CNN last year, Mr. Kelly said Mr. Trump called him and said several times that those (American) individuals who were wounded, captured or killed in action were ‘losers and suckers.’

“It was not the only time that he ever said it,” Mr. Kelly said in explaining a report that the current President told him he did not want to visit the cemetery of the American officers killed during the World War I.

Frank said ‘every time he mentioned John McCain, he went on this tirade about him being a loser and all those people were idiots, and why do you people think those people dying are heroes? And he’d go through this rant and raving about how terrible my ponytail was, at how view dirty it looked.”

“To me, I could never understand why he was that way — he may be the only American citizen that feels that way about those who gave their lives or served their country,” Mr. Kelly said.

Mr. Kelly also stated that in addition to stating: “losers” and “suckers” Mr. Trump also openly doubted the willingness of Americans to make sacrifices for their country.

In the Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery in 2017, accompanied by Mr. Kelly, Trump made a tour at the part of the cemetery where recently killed service members are buried, including Robert, Mr. kelly’s son who was a Marine and died in 2010 while fighting in Afghanistan.

Walking through the cemetery, Mr. Kelly said, Mr. Trump asked what was in it for those who sacrificed their lives.

“And I thought he was asking one of these rhetorical kind of, you know, questions,” Mr. Kelly said. But I didn’t realize he was serious — he just didn’t see what the point was. Once I started getting to know him again, I found that again, he didn’t get this selflessness at all. What’s in it for them?”

Mr. Kelly never has a good thing to say about Mr. Trump

Mr. Kelly was asked if he felt that Mr. Trump had any empathy.

“No,” Mr. Kelly said.