‘Lowlife’: Furious Donald Trump hits back at his former chief of staff, General John Kelly

Donald Trump has unleashed a furious tirade against the man who was once his top staffer, calling him a “degenerate” and a “lowlife”.

Donald Trump has hit back at his former White House chief of staff, General John Kelly, furiously labelling him a “lowlife” and a “degenerate”.

Gen Kelly was the second of Mr Trump’s four chiefs of staff during his term in office, serving in the role from 2017-2019. But he has since become a strident critic of the former president.

In an interview this week, he described Mr Trump as an “authoritarian” who “admires dictators” and “falls into the general definition of a fascist”.

Gen Kelly has also gone on the record with unsettling anecdotes about Mr Trump, recalling that his then-boss praised Adolf Hitler for doing “some good things”, repeatedly complained that American generals should be more like those of Nazi Germany, and labelled fallen US soldiers “suckers” and “losers”.

Mr Trump denies all of those allegations.

Gen Kelly and Mr Trump in less acrimonious times. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

In a post on social media overnight, the former president fired back at the man who was once his top aide.

“Thank you for your support against a total degenerate named John Kelly, who made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred!” he wrote.

“This guy had two qualities, which don’t work well together. He was tough and dumb. The problem is his toughness morphed into weakness, because he became JELLO with time!

“The story about the Soldiers was A LIE, as are numerous other stories he told. Even though I shouldn’t be wasting my time with him, I always feel it’s necessary to hit back in pursuit of THE TRUTH. John Kelly is a LOWLIFE, and a bad General, whose advice in the White House I no longer sought, and told him to MOVE ON!

“His wife once told me, at Camp David, John admires you tremendously, and when he leaves the Military, he will only speak well of you. I said, Thank you!”

‘Hitler’s generals’: Kelly’s allegations

The twin catalysts for this fresh outbreak of acrimony were an article published in The Atlantic on Tuesday and an interview Gen Kelly gave to The New York Times.

In the former piece, Gen Kelly spoke of a time when, he alleges, Mr Trump asked him: “Why can’t you be like the German generals?”

“Do you mean Bismarck’s generals?” Gen Kelly responded.

“I mean, I knew he didn’t know who Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War. I said, ‘Do you mean the kaiser’s generals? Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals?’

“And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.’ I explained to him that Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler.”

Gen Kelly went on to clarify that Mr Trump did not know who Erwin Rommel was.

Other sources cited by The Atlantic, who were not identified, recalled Mr Trump saying he needed “the kind of generals that Hitler had”, meaning “people who were totally loyal to him, that followed orders”.

A spokesman for the Trump campaign said this was “absolutely false” and the former president “never said this”.

Gen Kelly, Mr Trump’s chief of staff at the time, listening to his boss speak during a meeting with governors at the White House in 2018. Those meetings do tend to be quite dull, to be fair. Picture: Olivier Douliery/AFP

At another point, Gen Kelly alleges, Mr Trump claimed “Hitler did some good things”.

“I said, ‘Well, what?’ And he said, ‘Well, he rebuilt the economy,’” he recalled.

“But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world,” Gen Kelly claims he said.

“I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing.’”

‘Fits the definition of a fascist’

In his interview with The New York Times, audio of which has been published by the newspaper, Gen Kelly stressed that he “would agree” with Mr Trump’s policies “in many cases”, but said “it’s a very dangerous thing to have the wrong person” in high office.

Asked whether he thought Mr Trump was a fascist, Gen Kelly looked up the definition, and suggested his former boss met it.

“Well, looking at the definition of fascism: it’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterised by a dictatorial leader, centralised autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy,” he said.

“Certainly, in my experience, those are the kinds of things that he thinks would work better in terms of running America.

“Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators. He has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of a fascist, for sure.”

He went on to say that Mr Trump “prefers the dictator approach to government” and wanted the “ability to do anything he wanted any time he wanted”.

Gen Kelly listening while Mr Trump met with North Korean defectors in the Oval Office, back in 2018. Picture: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP

Gen Kelly said he was speaking out publicly, on the record, because of Mr Trump’s recent remarks suggesting he would use the military against his domestic political opponents.

During an interview with Fox News, Mr Trump spoke about an “enemy within” the United States, which he defined as “sick people, radical left lunatics”.

“I think it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by (the) National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military,” he said.

“I think this issue of using the military to go after American citizens is one of those things I think is a very, very bad thing,” Gen Kelly said.

“Even to say it for political purposes to get elected, I think is a very, very bad thing, let alone actually doing it.”

Mr Trump has long denied the accusation, first reported in The Atlantic with Gen Kelly acting as an anonymous source, that on a visit to France during his presidency, he called US soldiers who died during the First World War “suckers” and “losers”.

Gen Kelly has now gone on the record with that claim. He told The New York Times there were multiple occasions on which Mr Trump expressed confusion at soldiers’ decision to put their own lives at risk for their country.

The specific incident in question involved a scheduled visit to a cemetery, near Paris, where American soldiers from World War I were buried. Gen Kelly alleges Mr Trump didn’t want to go, as it was raining.

Donald Trump. Picture: Jim Watson/AFP

“The time in Paris was not the only time that he ever said it,” he recalled.

“Whenever John McCain’s name came up, he’d go through this rant about him being a loser, and all those people were suckers, and why do you people think that people getting killed are heroes? And he’d go through this rant.

“To me, I could never understand why he was that way. He may be the only American citizen that feels that way about those who gave their lives or served their country.”

Mr McCain, the late US senator, was also the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2008 (he lost the election to Barack Obama).

Before that he was a pilot in the US Navy. During the Vietnam War, he was shot down and captured, which led to him spending years in a prisoner-of-war camp.

Offered a chance to be set free, due to his father’s position as commander of all US forces in the area, Mr McCain refused, saying he would not accept a release unless the other men being held captive were let go as well. He was subsequently subjected to severe torture, which among other things left him unable to fully raise his arms for the rest of his life.

During his first presidential campaign in 2015, Mr Trump ignited controversy by dismissing Mr McCain’s service.

“He is a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured,” Mr Trump said at the time.

He was annoyed with Mr McCain for speaking out against his candidacy.

In his interview, Gen Kelly also recalled a moment he shared with Mr Trump at Arlington National Cemetery, where hundreds of thousands of fallen American soldiers are buried.

One of those soldiers is Gen Kelly’s son Robert, a marine who was killed in 2010 while fighting in Afghanistan.

Gen Kelly said that, during a walk through the cemetery in 2017, Mr Trump asked what had been in it for the soldiers.

“I thought he was asking one of these rhetorical kind of questions,” he recalled.

“But I didn’t realise he was serious. He just didn’t see what the point was. As I got to know him, again, this selflessness is something he just didn’t understand.”

Asked, bluntly, whether Mr Trump had any empathy, he answered: “No.”