Trump complained U.S. generals not like Hitler's generals

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Former President Donald Trump complained to then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly that American generals were not as loyal to him as he believed German generals had been to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, according to a new book about Trump’s tenure in office.

“You f---ing generals, why can’t you be like the German generals?” Trump asked Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, according to an excerpt published online Monday in the New Yorker of the book, “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021.”

“Which generals?” Kelly replied.

“The German generals in World War II,” Trump responded, according to the excerpt of the book, which was co-authored by New York Times White House reporter Peter Baker and New Yorker staff writer Susan Glasser. Doubleday is publishing the book in September.

“You do know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off?” Kelly said, according to the book excerpt.

Trump then said, “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” the excerpt said.

Glasser and Baker described how Trump soured on Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, after Milley, then-Attorney General William Barr and Defense Secretary Mark Esper resisted his demands to have the military respond to protests outside the White House in response to the murder by police officers of George Floyd.

“You are all losers! You are all f---ing losers!” Trump told them, according to the excerpt.

“Turning to Milley, Trump said, ‘Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?’” Glasser and Baker reported.

Trump, in an emailed statement, said Milley and other generals referenced in the book 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 while president also reportedly showed distaste for the idea of injured armed services members, including those in wheelchairs and missing limbs, participating in a huge military parade that he wanted in Washington on Independence Day

“Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade,” Trump told Kelly, whose own son was killed in combat in Afghanistan, according to the excerpt.

“This doesn’t look good for me.”

That parade never came to fruition after retired generals such as his then-Defense Secretary James Mattis and Air Force General Paul Selva, the then-vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, strongly resisted the idea, which would have cost millions of dollars and damaged Washington’s streets.

“I’d rather swallow acid,” Mattis said at the time, according to the excerpt.

And when Kelly sarcastically told Trump that Selva was going to organize the parade, the president, not realizing it was a joke, asked Selva what he thought of that plan.