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Kelly’s revelation about Trump’s Nazi envy leaves the GOP shrugging

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Kelly’s revelation about Trump’s Nazi envy leaves the GOP shrugging

Something tells me Fox News would react a little differently if we knew that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris once said she needed “the kind of Marxist guerrillas that Che Guevara had.”

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Republicans and conservative commentators spent Wednesday responding to The Atlantic’s shocking revelations that Donald Trump, while president, said he needed “the kind of generals that Hitler had” by basically saying: OK, so what?

On Fox News, host Brian Kilmeade spun the news, confirmed by John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general and former Trump chief of staff, in a spectacularly silly way:

“I can absolutely see him saying, ‘You know what? It would be great to have German generals who actually do what we ask them to do, maybe without fully knowing the third line of German generals who were Nazis or whatever.”

what All of Adolf Hitler’s generals were Nazis, scoundrels. You can’t just shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, you know, Trump was crazy and trying to make a point.”

How can anyone defend Trump’s apparent Nazi envy comments?

Something tells me Kilmeade would react a little differently if we knew that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris once said she needed “the kind of Marxist guerrillas that Che Guevara had.”

But this is Trump, so I guess there’s a little bit of Nazi envy going on. Kelly, in interviews with The New York Times and The Atlantic, said Trump also regularly demeaned military veterans and claimed that Hitler “did some good things.”

“You have to look in the mirror and realize that your dishonor will live forever”

Notably, Kilmeade did not discuss whether Trump made those comments. This makes sense, given the source. Kelly is an honorable patriot who has absolutely nothing to gain from sharing this story. If anything, he is putting himself in a position to be the first to be shut down if the former president wins re-election.

Trump, on the other hand, is a lying convicted felon that no one should trust.

Former Rep. Liz Cheney, a true conservative, posted on social media Wednesday: “If your response to Gen. John Kelly, father of Gold Star and Trump’s WH chief of staff, confirmed that Trump will to praise Hitler and called members of our military “shitholes and losers”.

In fact

GOP governor says Trump’s extremism is ‘getting into the vote’

Not to be outdone by Kilmeade in the licking department, Chris Sununu, the Republican governor of New Hampshire, went on CNN and tried to tone down Trump’s Nazi-admiring comments.

“I respect General Kelly, I think he’s great, he’s got a long-term relationship with the president. When you get into these last few weeks, it’s all about results, so of course you’re going to say salacious things, and I’m not taking away the general’s conversation with the former president,” Sununu said.

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The governor then completely removed the general’s conversation with the former president, treating it as a big shout-out, saying, “We’ve heard a lot of extreme things about Donald Trump, from Donald Trump. It’s kind of par for the course. Unfortunately, with a guy like that, that’s where he gets on the ballot.”

How the hell are “Hitler did some good things” and “I wish I had generals like Hitler’s” just things that go into focus? Sununu’s point is really, “So the guy likes Hitler, what’s he going to do? Vote for a Lib?”

Dismissing a wish for Hitler’s generals is not okay, ever

We’ve heard a lot lately about people “washing” Trump’s ramblings to sound normal. But hearing the likes of Sununu and Kilmeade take Trump’s views and chalk them up to Nazis is a whole other ball game.

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Far-right Ben Shapiro posted on social media that Kelly’s comments — which came after retired general Mark Milley said in a book that Trump is “fascist to the core” — were “the latest dumping ground for the left-wing media opposition.” and that no one should worry about them.

He wrote that “people care about the quality of their lives.”

Okay, dude, I’d say the quality of people’s lives might go down a bit if we elect someone who has these kinds of overt authoritarian beliefs. But also, soldiers like Kelly and Milley are as far from the left wing as they can get, and this was not an “oppo mouthpiece”, these are words coming from the mouths of two distinguished American figures.

There is one candidate who has not suggested that Hitler did good things

I will never understand how so many people have stooped to defend a man like Trump. But defenses don’t matter much when someone talks about the indefensible.

As Cheney said, Kilmeade and Sununu and Shapiro and any of the other toads standing by their man can enjoy the disgrace they will do for the rest of eternity.

I’ll stick with the more widely accepted view that all Nazis were bad, fascism is bullshit, and veterans deserve our respect and admiration.

And I’m sure I won’t vote for someone who thinks otherwise.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on X, formerly Twitter, @RexHuppke and Facebook facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

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