As Donald Trump's allies continue to whitewash the former president's affinity for authoritarian styles of governance, several ex-Trump administration officials are publicly affirming the warning given by former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly earlier this week: Trump will govern like a dictator.
This week, Kelly went on the record and told The New York Times that Trump is a textbook fascist, and would rule like a dictator if reelected. In a separate interview with The Atlantiche expanded on his past recollections of Trump expressing admiration for Hitler — and his desire for generals as loyal as the Nazi dictator's.
According to a Friday letter obtained by Political, more than a dozen public officials who served under Trump — all of them Republicans — are throwing their support behind the retired general. Signatories include former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Elizabeth Neumann, former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, former national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence Olivia Troye, and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci.
“The revelations General Kelly brought forward are disturbing and shocking. But because we know Trump and have worked for and alongside him, we were sadly not surprised by what General Kelly had to say,” they wrote.
“Everyone should heed General Kelly's warning,” the letter adds. “Like General Kelly, we did not take the decision to come forward lightly. We are all lifelong Republicans who served our country. However, there are moments in history where it becomes necessary to put country over party. This is one of those moments.”
Kelly is not the first high-level Trump official to warn that Trump is prepared to use the military against American citizens, and craves unquestioning loyalty from American generals.
In 2022, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper wrote in his book, At Sacred Oath, that Trump had suggested shooting protesters “in the legs” during 2020's Black Lives Matter protests. “At this point, even if we were wrong and violence spiked in the city, I didn't want active-duty forces quickly available to the president,” Esper wrote in his memoir.
Esper publicly opposed Trump's suggestion to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell the protests, and was dismissed from the administration shortly after Trump lost his bid for reelection.
In a Friday report by The Washington Post, former National Security Advisor John Bolton said that putting troops in American cities was often “the first thing [Trump] would think of doing, instead of going through the traditional pattern.” One former senior administration official told the Post that Trump would frequently complain that “no one at the Pentagon would do what they're told to do.”
Former Deputy National Security Adviser Charles Kupperman added that “Trump wants generals who are going to perform at his beck and call.”
Trump responded with characteristic fury to Kelly's statements, and the subsequent revival of criticism from his former staff.
“Thank you for your support against a total degenerate named John Kelly, who made up a story out of pure Trump Derangement Syndrome Hatred! This guy had two qualities, which don't work well together. He was tough and dumb,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday night. “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!”
Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign as seized on Kelly's comments as part of a closing pitch to voters warning of Trump's desires to rule with unquestioning authority.
“This is a window into who Donald Trump really is, from the people who know him best, from the people who worked with him side-by-side in the Oval Office, and in the Situation Room,” Harris said at a televised press conference on Wednesday. “In a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions.”
