Trump asked John Kelly why US generals weren't 'totally loyal' to him like Hitler's generals during WWII: book
Trump asked why US generals weren't as loyal to him as the senior officers who served Hitler during WWII, per an excerpt from a coming new book.
Kelly informed Trump that Hitler's generals attempted to assassinate him.
But Trump insisted that the generals in Nazi Germany were "totally loyal" to Hitler.
Former President Donald Trump once asked his White House chief of staff, John Kelly, why America's generals were not as loyal to him as Adolf Hitler's generals during World War II, according to an upcoming book from Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, "The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021."
"You fucking generals, why can't you be like the German generals?" Trump said to Kelly, per an excerpt of the book published in the New Yorker.
Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, asked Trump to clarify "which generals" he meant. According to the book, Trump replied, "The German generals in World War II."
In response, Kelly said to Trump, "You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?" But Trump insisted that the generals in Nazi Germany were "totally loyal" to Hitler, the book said.
"In his version of history, the generals of the Third Reich had been completely subservient to Hitler; this was the model he wanted for his military. Kelly told Trump that there were no such American generals, but the President was determined to test the proposition," Glasser and Baker wrote.
Early on in his tenure, many of Trump's top advisors — including Kelly — were current or former generals. Trump often referred to them as "my generals." But Trump apparently took issue with the fact these generals did not show him "blind loyalty" and often challenged him on an array of issues, according to Glasser and Baker.
In a statement to the New Yorker, Trump said, "These were very untalented people and once I realized it, I did not rely on them, I relied on the real generals and admirals within the system."
The Trump administration saw historically high rates of turnover as Trump constantly butted heads with advisors.
A number of Trump's former advisors, including Kelly, have been highly critical of the ex-president since they stopped working with him, particularly with regard to the deadly January 6 riot at the US Capitol. Kelly, for example, told ABC News' Jonathan Karl last year that if Trump were "a real man," he would've gone down to the Capitol on January 6 and told his supporters to stop the violent attack.
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