Trump Brings Back Notorious 2020 Lawyer in Sign of Trouble to Come

“I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two sources that spoke anonymously with The Atlantic. “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.”

While in a frustrated discussion with then–Chief of Staff John Kelly, a former Marine general, Trump reportedly asked, “Why can’t you be like the German generals?” forgetting that Hitler’s top generals had themselves defied him and made several attempts toward the end of World War II to kill him. Kelly, trying to correct the president, informed him that German generals “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off.”

But Trump wouldn’t hear of it. “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him,” the president responded, according to Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s 2022 book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021.