Former President Donald Trump once "stunned" then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly by asserting that Adolf Hitler "did a lot of good things," according to a new book.
Journalist Michael Bender reports in his upcoming book Frankly, We Did Win this Election that in 2018, during a trip to Europe for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, Trump insisted to Kelly that Hitler "did a lot of good things," which "stunned" him, The Guardian reports. Trump's chief of staff "told the president that he was wrong," the book says.
Trump, though, was reportedly "undeterred" and referenced Germany's economic recovery under Hitler, to which Kelly shot back that "the German people would have been better off poor than subjected to the Nazi genocide." Kelly also reportedly told Trump that "you cannot ever say anything supportive of Adolf Hitler. You just can't." Trump reportedly denies making the comment.
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The book also reportedly describes how Kelly during his time in the White House needed to overcome Trump's "stunning disregard for history," and "senior officials described his understanding of slavery, Jim Crow, or the Black experience in general post-civil war as vague to nonexistent." Trump's comment about Hitler reportedly came as Kelly was offering Trump a World War I history lesson, reminding him "which countries were on which side during the conflict."
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