Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade defended Donald Trump following reports that he praised Nazi generals.
On Tuesday, former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly went on the record recounting disturbing conversations he had with Trump in which he said Nazi leader Adolf Hitler did “some good things” and that he needed “the kind of generals that Hitler had.”
On Wednesday’s show Kilmeade cited a recent book by former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, saying that former Secretary of Defense Gen. Jim Mattis and Kelly “didn’t like the president, and they didn’t think he deserved the job, or they didn’t think he was worthy of the job, and they went out of his way to make sure a lot of things they asked him to do that they didn’t like never got done.”
“McMaster would be frustrated because he couldn’t get their attention and he would say, ‘It’s not your job to rein in the president. It’s your job to do what the president wants,'” Kilmeade said.
The Fox host then went on to argue that Trump was also frustrated since he came from the business world and is use to getting his own way and probably had no idea that Hitler’s generals were Nazis.
“He’s obviously has frustration and I could absolutely see him go ‘now, you know what? It’ll be great to have German generals that actually do what we asked them to do,’ maybe not fully under — fully being cognizant of the third rail of German generals who were Nazis or whatever.”
Kilmeade has received criticism for the comment defending Trump’s praise of Nazi generals.
CNN’s Jake Tapper reposted the clip on X/Twitter with the caption “German generals who were Nazis or whatever.”
“This… is insane. Hitler’s generals carried out GENOCIDE. Republicans: STOP defending this. This is not normal. There is no way to spin this,” former Trump White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews wrote.
“Why do they insist on embarrassing themselves like this?” conservative attorney and vocal Trump critic George Conway asked.
“Fox host defends Trump saying he wants “the kind of generals that Hitler had,” saying “maybe [Trump] was not being fully cognizant” that Hitler’s generals were “Nazis or whatever,” Kamala Harris campaign account wrote.
