JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Here's a quotation - "I need the kind of generals that Hitler had" - said by former president and thus Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump in a private conversation in the White House, according to new reporting from Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Trump's spokesperson denied strongly that this ever happened, though it does align with the last decade of comments Trump has made where he has repeatedly praised dictators, insulted wounded and fallen veterans and threatened to deploy armed forces against American protesters and political opponents.
Jeffrey Goldberg is here now to tell us more about his new reporting. Jeffrey, welcome back.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Thank you.
SUMMERS: So if you could just start, Jeffrey, what is the context for this comment where Trump expresses a desire for the sort of generals that Hitler had?
GOLDBERG: He's been preoccupied for years with maximizing power and has been frustrated with the limitations put on a president in a democracy. Obviously, we know that he has a kind of almost jealousy of the power that people like Putin and Xi in China have. And John Kelly, his former chief of staff, also a former Marine general, has talked about this quite a bit. Jim Mattis, the former defense secretary, also a former Marine general - is a retired Marine general - has talked about this quite a bit.
In 2020, the frustration really grew, and he started talking about - and he still talks about it - he talks about Hitler and Hitler's generals. He's been corrected in private conversations with John Kelly and others. He's been told, you know, A, you're not supposed to praise Nazis.
SUMMERS: Right.
GOLDBERG: B, Hitler's generals actually tried to kill Hitler on many occasions. He just admires people who exercise absolute power, which is why Jim Mattis, now, and Mark Milley, reportedly, and John Kelly have all said that he has fascistic tendencies.
SUMMERS: I want to ask you a bit about John Kelly - as you know, Trump's former chief of staff and a former Marine general. He spoke to you. He also spoke to The New York Times. Kelly said that Trump met the definition of fascist and, quote, "prefers the dictator approach to government." And I'll just note here, there are fewer than two weeks to go until Election Day. Many people out here are already voting. And yet Kelly is speaking out in a way that we have not heard before. Do you have a sense - or why do you imagine that Kelly has chosen to speak out now so forcefully?
GOLDBERG: I think all of these former generals who worked in one way or another for Trump are flummoxed by what to do. There's a strong tradition in the American military of staying apolitical, right? And so based on first-hand experience with a lot of these former generals, former national security figures, they really believe that Donald Trump represents an existential threat - a threat to the constitutional order of the United States - in a way that no other politician does or has.
SUMMERS: You have been reporting about former President Trump's relationship with the military since he first ran for president eight years ago. And as you point out, the chorus of former military and national security officials speaking out against Trump has grown, including Defense Secretary Mark Esper. And I just want to play a bit of tape - when he recounted to NPR back in 2022 that Trump did want to deploy those active duty troops to disperse protesters inspired by the murder of George Floyd. Let's listen.
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MARK ESPER: We reached that point in the conversation where he looked frankly at General Milley and said, can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something.
SUMMERS: And Jeffrey Goldberg, again, that was back in 2022.
GOLDBERG: Yeah.
SUMMERS: Has anything changed recently in terms of Trump's views of military might?
GOLDBERG: No, I think he has taken an even darker view. If you listen to the campaign rhetoric, you listen to the way he talks about power, the way he talks about, quote, "the enemy within," this is language borrowed from authoritarianism - talking about the enemy within, talking about jailing opponents, talking about using the military in the suppression of domestic protests.
I think the rhetoric has gotten darker and more extreme in recent weeks and recent months. Obviously, talking about the way he would deploy the military inside the United States to deal with the immigration crisis, as he sees it, and to participate in rounding up immigrants is also sort of a novel approach to the use of the military.
SUMMERS: What do you think that the former military officers that you've spoken to think that a Trump presidency - a second Trump presidency - would mean for the country?
GOLDBERG: Well, I think they've made it pretty clear now in the deployment of the word fascist. These are not men who use terms lightly.
SUMMERS: Right.
GOLDBERG: You know, when you reach the level of a four-star general and then defense secretary, chief of staff, national security adviser and so on, you understand how to calibrate language. It is fairly extraordinary that they believe that we would be looking at an actual fascist threat to American democracy.
SUMMERS: We've been speaking with The Atlantic's editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. Jeffrey, thanks for sharing your reporting.
GOLDBERG: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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