Aide tried to stop Trump praising Hitler - by telling him Mussolini was 'great guy'

[Uncle Joe]

Ex-president’s second chief of staff tried to convince him fascist dictator was ‘great guy in comparison’, John Kelly tells Jim Sciutto

(snip)

Kelly told Sciutto it was “pretty hard to believe” Trump “missed the Holocaust” in his assessment of Hitler, “and pretty hard to understand how he missed the 400,000 American GIs that were killed in the European theatre” of the second world war.

(snip)

Kelly said: “My theory on why [Trump] likes the dictators so much is that’s who he is.

“Every incoming president is shocked that they actually have so little power without going to the Congress, which is a good thing. It’s civics 101, separation of powers, three equal branches of government.

“But in his case, he was shocked that he didn’t have dictatorial-type powers to send US forces places or to move money around within the budget. And he looked at Putin and Xi [Jinping, of China] and that nutcase in North Korea as people who were like him in terms of being a tough guy.”

(snip)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/12/mussolini-trump-hitler-john-kelly-jim-sciutto-book

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Biden-Harris campaign statement on new report that Donald Trump said Hitler "did some good things"

Link to tweet

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

2. During the first few months of his presidency I remember T***p

signing EO after EO, holding up the bound copy of the document after he'd scribbled his illegible name and showing it to the camera with a big smile, like a small child showing his parents a test they an "A" on. "See what a good boy I am!" He had found out he didn't need Congressional approval for EOs, so that became his favorite method of getting his way.

Later he discovered that if he designated a position as "temporary" he could put a loyalist there without Senate confirmation, and if that person didn't ask "how high?" when told to jump to perform one the many whims of the Tangerine One he could be fired for any reason -- or no reason at all.

My nightmare is if TFG wins, on his much ballyhooed "Day One" he'll walk into the Oval Office to find piles of EOs to sign. Each EO would fulfill one of the Heritage Foundation's wet dreams, or one of the many authoritarian proclamations he vomited during his campaign. He could remake the whole of American society, all before Day One ended.

Just an observation: On those few cases where he signed into law one the few bills that made it through Congress, his signing ceremony was different in two ways. The men standing behind him stood stiffly looked like the crowds hired for his escalator and "auto workers" photo ops. The second this is this. Traditionally during a signing there are a dozen pens on the desk, and the president writes his signature one letter at a time, handing the pen to one of the people (male and female) who had worked to make the law come to fruition.

Trump would take his Sharpie, scribble his name, and hold the law to the camera, like he was the only one who made it happen.

"Narcissist" should have been "Word of the Year" four times in a row.