The former president wanted to prevent the presence of mutilated in a military parade because they did not give a “good image”
Former US President Donald Trump lamented that his generals were not as loyal to him as he believes German generals were to dictator Adolf Hitler during World War II, ‘The New Yorker’ magazine reveals in a report based on a new book. journalistic investigation.
Specifically, it refers to Trump’s idea of promoting a large military parade with tanks and other heavy material through the streets of Washington on the occasion of the Independence Day festivities.
The ‘number two’ of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Paul Selva, then replied that it was a bad idea, very expensive, and that “that’s what dictators do”, which sparked Trump’s anger.
Damn generals! Why can’t you be like the German generals?” Trump snapped. “What generals?” asked the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, John Kelly. “German generals in World War II,” Trump replied.
“Do you know that they tried to kill Hitler three times and almost succeeded?” Kelly argued. “No no no. They were absolutely loyal to him,” Trump said.
Trump also clashed with the military high command when he told them he did not want maimed people or wheelchairs in the parade as he had seen in Paris on a recent visit. “I do not want them. They don’t give me a good image », he argued.
“They are the heroes,” Kelly then replied. “In our society there is only one class of people more heroic and they are those who are buried in Arlington”, the historic American military cemetery in which Kelly himself has a son buried who died in Afghanistan. Kelly was removed from office at the end of 2018, and the Washington Military Parade was held in 2019.
Trump had already expressed his admiration for Hitler in 2018, when he said that “Hitler did many good things” in economic matters, according to Kelly, although a spokesman for the then president denied the facts, calling them “fake news”.
In addition, some generals such as the Army Chief of Staff, Mark Milley, feared that Trump would provoke a conflict with Iran after losing the November 2021 elections to try to stay in power. Milley even traveled to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to convince him not to push Trump in that direction. “If you do, we’re going to have a damn war,” the general told Netanyahu.
The article in ‘The New Yorker’ is based on a book, ‘The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021’, written by the magazine’s journalist Susan Glasser and the White House correspondent for ‘The New York Times’, Peter Baker.
In response to the article, Trump told ‘The New Yorker’ that “these are people with very little talent and as soon as I realized it, I stopped relying on them and started relying on the real generals and admirals.”
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