Trump repeatedly praised authoritarian leaders while serving as president, Kelly and other former senior advisers told CNN’s Jim Sciutto. Trump praised Chinese leader Xi Jinping, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the former aides said. But his most unnerving praise was for Hitler.
“He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things.’ I said, ‘Well, what?’ And he said, ‘Well, [Hitler] rebuilt the economy.’ But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world. And I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing,’” Kelly recalled, according to Sciutto. “I mean, Mussolini was a great guy in comparison.”
“It’s pretty hard to believe he missed the Holocaust, though, and pretty hard to understand how he missed the 400,000 American GIs that were killed in the European theater,” Kelly added.