John Kelly says Donald Trump meets the definition of a 'fascist'

John Kelly, who served as White House chief of staff during the Trump administration, said in a series of recent interviews that former President Donald Trump spoke positively about Adolf Hitler during his time in office.

The remark, published Tuesday, came from one of Kelly's interviews with The New York Times. Audio of his comments has been made available online.

Kelly initially joined the Trump administration as Homeland Security Secretary and later served as White House Chief of Staff from July 2017 to early 2019.

“He said more than once that Hitler did some good things, too,” Kelly said. He also told the New York Times that Trump met “the general definition of a fascist.”

“Certainly the former president is on the far right, he is certainly an authoritarian leader, he admires people who are dictators – that's what he said. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist,” Kelly said.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said in a statement that Kelly had “completely embarrassed himself” by telling “debunked stories” about the Trump administration.

“President Trump has always honored the service and sacrifices of all of our military,” Cheung said.

The Atlantic reported earlier Tuesday that Trump secretly admired Hitler's generals “who were completely loyal to him” and followed orders. In a conversation at the White House, he said privately: “I need the kind of generals Hitler had.”

“This is absolutely false,” Trump spokesman Alex Pfeiffer wrote in an email, The Atlantic reported. “President Trump never said that.”

NBC News has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.

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Kelly told NBC News in 2022 that when he complained about U.S. generals, Trump would tell Trump that their greatest loyalty was to the Constitution and the rule of law.

More recently, Democrats have compared some of Trump's rhetoric to that of Hitler. In December, Trump sparked a backlash when he said at a rally in New Hampshire that immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country.” Hitler used the term “blood poisoning” in his manifesto “Mein Kampf” to denigrate immigration and miscegenation. Trump denied having read the text.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, referred to The Atlantic's reporting on Trump's admiration for Hitler's generals at a campaign rally in Racine, Wisconsin, on Tuesday night, saying, “It makes me sick as hell, and it should.” do. “You’re sick.”