John Kelly Warns Of Trump ‘Using The Military To Go After American Citizens’: ‘Very, Very Bad Thing. Even to Say It’

CNN’s Jim Acosta interviewed The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols on Wednesday to discuss the latest bombshell revelations from Gen. John Kelly and the impact on the 2024 race.

“This morning, the Trump campaign is vehemently denying a stunning and damning report in The Atlantic. The magazine cites two sources claiming to have heard the former president say he wanted the kind of generals that Hitler had during private White House conversations,” Acosta began, adding:

Trump’s former White House chief of staff, retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, confirms the report. And Kelly tells The York Times that he does not take lightly Trump’s recent comments on using the US military against his political rivals.

“I think there’s this issue of using the military to go after American citizens is one of those things I think is a very, very bad thing. Even to say it for political purposes to get elected is a very, very bad thing, let alone actually doing it,” Kelly is then heard on tape saying.

“Joining us now is Tom Nichols, a staff writer for The Atlantic. Tom, you write about international security and the challenges to democracy in the U.S. and abroad. I mean, did you what are your thoughts on this word that keeps coming up as it relates to Donald Trump, ‘fascism,’ and coming from two respected retired generals, General Milley and General Kelly?” asked Acosta of Nichols, who is also a former professor at the U.S. Naval War College.

“I think it’s really important to pay attention to them. It’s a word that I was very hesitant to use for a long time because, as you know, I taught politics for many years before I became a writer. And, you know, the word fascist has a pretty scalding meaning,” Nichols replied, adding:

But there comes a time when Trump’s behavior, when the shoe finally, when the boot finally fits. And when you’re hearing people like Milley and General Kelly and others use that word, people need to pay attention to it. And I think that’s part of the problem, is that people really don’t pay attention to it. They’ve become desensitized and kind of numb to it. And they think it’s just part of the give and take of politics.

And I think they just don’t realize what deadly serious business this is and how dangerous Trump really has become. Even if they hear it from people that worked side by side, even if they heard from a four-star general who worked side by side with Trump every day, they still just kind of shrug it off as, you know, just another episode of reality TV, unfortunately.

“No, you’re absolutely right. And we’ve seen Republican lawmakers, powerbrokers showing this unwavering support of Trump, including his lies about the 2020 election being rigged. I was asking Congressman Castro about this earlier on. If Trump gets back into the White House, are there enough checks and balances in place to protect democracy? If Trump gets in there and behaves like a fascist dictator? He has said that he would be a dictator on day one. You have generals saying he is fascist. Are the checks and balances strong enough? Will they hold?” Acosta followed up.

“They’re not strong enough because they’re not made to deal with somebody like Donald Trump. We already saw that in his first term,” Nichols replied, adding:

You know, one of the great myths around Trump at this point is that we got through four years and it was fine. We weren’t fine. Trump really assaulted the Constitution. He tried to overthrow an election. He tried to undermine our constitutional order. He tried to assault the rule of law. And in a lot of cases, he got away with it and he’s still getting away with it. The guardrails in American political life are agreements.

They’re not really iron doors or, you know, concrete walls. They’re there because we all agree to be decent people and to be responsible voters and to be alert citizens. And if, as James Madison said, ‘If there is no decency among us, then we are in a wretched situation.’ Black letter law of checks and balances aren’t going to matter if you have a lawless administration that just wants to tear up the Constitution, whenever they want to do, whatever they want to do. And that’s, Trump has vowed to do that. And I think people should take him seriously.

Watch the clip above via CNN.