Washington DC – As the race to the White House intensifies, Donald Trump's Ex-Chief of Staff claimed that the former US President praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and said that the German dictator Adolf Hilter “did some good things”. The revelations were made by General John Kelly, a retired marine who became the Trump administration's longest-serving chief of staff in a new book. In the book, Kelly claimed that the former US President repeatedly praised Putin and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, Sky News reported. 

Kelly told CNN journalist Jim Sciutto that the business-mogul-turned politician "thought Putin was an OK guy and Kim was an OK guy" – before he went on to recall a conversation he allegedly had about Hitler.  "[Trump] said, 'Well, but Hitler did some good things'. I said, 'Well, what?' And he said, ‘well, [Hitler] rebuilt the economy’"," Kelly told the CNN journalist for his latest book.  “But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world. And I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing,” Kelly furthered. Trump has yet to respond to the allegations hurled against him. 

In the book, Kelly told Sciutto it was hard to understand the “blind spots” in how the former US President thought of Hitler. “It’s pretty hard to believe he missed the Holocaust, though, and pretty hard to understand how he missed the 400,000 American GIs that were killed in the European theatre,” Kelly told Sciutto. “But I think it’s more, again, the tough guy thing.”

Trump's very famous love affairs with authoritarians 

During his presidency, the former leader met with Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un on several occasions. He even went to publicly laud Putin and called him "very, very strong". Not only this, Trump took the Russian leader's side in a row with the FBI – a move which was vehemently criticised by angered senior politicians in the US. In the book, Sciutto writes that Kelly and others told him they “believe that the root of his admiration for these figures is that he envies their power," Sky News reported. 

Similar sentiments were echoed by John Bolton, the former national security adviser to Trump who had a fallout with the ex-president. According to the book, Bolton told Sciutto that Trump “views himself as a big guy,” adding, “He likes dealing with other big guys, and big guys like [President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] in Turkey get to put people in jail and you don’t have to ask anybody’s permission. He kind of likes that.” Following the revelations, Trump's spokesperson Steven Cheung ripped both Kelly and Bolton and dismissed their allegations. “John Kelly and John Bolton have completely beclowned themselves and are suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. They need to seek professional help because their hatred is consuming their empty lives,” he wrote in the statement.