Two of the country’s best journalists have published reporting from their new book about Donald Trump that includes huge bombshells, including that as president he compared himself to Hitler, in a positive way for both men. Trump, essentially, imagined himself as Hitler, and wanted his generals to display unflinching, unquestioning loyalty.
“Trump’s love affair with ‘my generals’ was brief, and in a statement for this article the former President confirmed how much he had soured on them over time,” The New Yorker’s Susan B. Glasser and The New York Times’ Peter Baker write at The New Yorker, in an piece titled, “Inside the War Between Trump and His Generals.”
“These were very untalented people and once I realized it, I did not rely on them, I relied on the real generals and admirals within the system,” Trump wrote to them.
“It turned out that the generals had rules, standards, and expertise, not blind loyalty. The President’s loud complaint to John Kelly one day was typical: ‘You fucking generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?'” Glasser and Baker reveal.
“Which generals?” Kelly asked.
“The German generals in World War II,” Trump responded.
“You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?” Kelly said.
“But, of course, Trump did not know that. ‘No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,’ the President replied.”
That’s just one bombshell.
The article is drawn on reporting from their upcoming book, “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021.”
Glasser and Baker obtained a resignation letter Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley wrote to Trump after the Lafayette Square Bible photo-op incident.
“The events of the last couple weeks have caused me to do deep soul-searching, and I can no longer faithfully support and execute your orders,” Milley wrote. “It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country.”
Milley, in the letter he ultimately did not give Trump, accused him of “using the military to create fear in the minds of the people,” saying “we are trying to protect the American people. I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people.”
“I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States and embodied within that Constitution is the idea that says that all men and women are created equal,” the letter also says. “All men and women are created equal, no matter who you are, whether you are white or Black, Asian, Indian, no matter the color of your skin, no matter if you’re gay, straight or something in between.”
“We’re all Americans. That under these colors of red, white, and blue—the colors that my parents fought for in World War II—means something around the world. It’s obvious to me that you don’t think of those colors the same way I do. It’s obvious to me that you don’t hold those values dear and the cause that I serve.”
He also wrote: “it is my deeply held belief that you’re ruining the international order, and causing significant damage to our country overseas, that was fought for so hard by the Greatest Generation that they instituted in 1945.”
Read the entire article here.