Fox & Friends Pulls Out All the Stops to Defend Trump Against Claim He Praised Hitler

To Fox & Friends’ credit, the pro-Trump Fox News morning show actually covered new reporting that former Trump DHS secretary and chief of staff John Kelly alleged Donald Trump praised Hitler. But probably to no one’s surprise, they defended Trump and were quick to dismiss Kelly as politically motivated.

The Atlantic published a shocking report Tuesday evening, titled “Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had,’’ which featured a sub-headline that read, “The Republican nominee’s preoccupation with dictators, and his disdain for the American military, is deepening.”

Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg, who authored the article, credits Peter Baker and Susan Glasser for first reporting in their book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, that while in office, Trump asked Kelly, “Why can’t you be like the German generals?”

Goldberg added new reporting: Kelly, a retired general, confirmed to him personally that Trump said he admired generals who served Adolf Hitler. Hours after that bombshell, The New York Times published audio of an interview with Kelly in which he revealed Trump repeatedly praised Hitler and even said, “Hitler did some good things.”

Brian Kilmeade introduced the segment, suggesting that the timing of this news was politically motivated (you think?): “Probably the most controversial thing that’s happened over the last 24 hours, arguably the October surprise that John Kelly and General Mattis are authoring,” he said, before guest host Kayleigh McEnany, who served as press secretary to Trump, bravely jumped on the current (latest?) Trump-Hitler grenade.

McEnany has consistently claimed that John Kelly’s retelling of a private conversation he had with Trump in Normandy, in which the 45th president allegedly labeled US soldiers buried in a cemetery as “suckers and losers” has been debunked — though there is no way that she could disprove Kelly’s account.

McEnany flatly rejected the words of a decorated general, former DHS secretary and White House chief of staff.

“This is The Atlantic. It’s Jeffrey Goldberg,” she said, before bringing up a portion of the report in which Trump allegedly raged about the cost for a funeral service for a murdered soldier.

“When I saw this first they talk about a meeting with the guy and family. The Guillen family tragically lost their sister, lost their daughter. She served our country honorably. And they characterize a meeting, one in which I was not in this December meeting they speak of, but a meeting with this family,” she said. “And here’s what the sister said about this story. ‘Wow. I don’t appreciate how you all are exploiting my sister’s death for politics. Hurtful, deceitful. The important changes she made for service members. And indeed she did. President Donald Trump did nothing but show respect to my family.’ And, Vanessa, I was in that July meeting. That was undoubtedly the case.”

“But the reason my antenna went up last night when I saw the name Jeffrey Goldberg is because I was on a tarmac in September of 2020 and a story popped from him in the Atlantic and it was the ‘suckers and loser’ story we have all heard,” she continued. “Within hours, I was able to collect more than a dozen individuals, seven, several who were firsthand sources saying that never happened.”

It’s not clear how she can reasonably conclude how a private conversation “never happened,” but if she believes that to be true, then she is clearly saying that John Kelly is lying about what he says the former president told him personally.

“My point is this is based on four anonymous sources two weeks before an election disputed by people on the record. And yet it led a CBS News broadcast,” she concluded. “What a shame.“

Brian Kilmeade then stepped up to offer what he felt was plausible context to John Kelly’s claim that Trump told him that he wished he acted like one of “Hitler’s generals.”

Kilmeade cited a book by H.R. McMaster, a three-star general who worked under Trump. According to the Fox & Friends co-host, McMaster thought John Kelly and James Mattis felt it was their job to rein in some of Trump’s demands.

“So if your generals, who’s your Chief of Staff and your Secretary of Defense, is not doing what you say on an everyday basis, he’s like, you know, I’d love to. I can see him going, ‘I love generals that listened. That would be great,'” Kilmeade opined, defending Trump’s expectation, explaining he comes from a family company in which his deputies take orders.

“All of a sudden now [Trump’s] like, Do this. What do you mean you can’t do it? Do this? What do you mean you can’t do it? What do you mean? I’m not allowed to do it? And after a while, while being investigated, there were probably times we topped up. Wouldn’t it be great if generals actually listened?” Kilmeade continued. “Can you imagine if some people listen to the commander-in-chief? I can absolutely see that happening and why and they know it in context.”

Watch above via Fox News.