CNN’s Maggie Haberman And Kaitlan Collins Note ‘Significance’ Of New Trump Bombshells: ‘General Kelly’s Son Was Killed Serving’
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins and New York Times correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman noted the significance of new bombshells about former President Donald Trump by former Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly by pointing out Kelly’s strong connection to the military.
Kelly, also a retired general, has gone on the record before with damaging revelations, but usually in print. In reporting that dropped Tuesday, Kelly is on tape recounting stunning conversations in which Trump said Nazi leader Adolf Hitler did “some good things” and wished his own generals were more like Hitler’s, and calling Trump a fascist.
On Tuesday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, Collins and Haberman — both of whom have extensive first-person experience reporting on Trump — took pains to convey Kelly’s unique credibility on these issues:
COLLINS: I mean, Maggie, what do you, as someone who reported on the Trump White House, make of? John Kelly speaking out on the record is notable.
MAGGIE HABERMAN: Yes, look, it’s a significant moment.
He’s a — he’s a former general, and he served in that White House, and he cares deeply about military service, and about what the structure of power systems are, in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. And so, for him to publicly say that Trump meets the definition of a fascist is a significant moment.
And it’s not a surprise. As you noted, I reported that he had said this to people, privately. He made no secret to a number of people that he thought Trump was clearly not fit, in many ways, for office. I don’t know how many people this is going to move.
What I would say is that you don’t really need to fix a label to it. You can have the magic of sight and sound, about what Donald Trump has been saying and telling voters that he will do in office. And he will move toward a massive expansion of power. He has talked about using the military for domestic purposes. He has talked about the enemy within, repeatedly.
These are not new expressions of force for him. He, going back to the late 1980s, praised the Chinese crackdown, the government crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square, which was lethal, and he described that as showing the quote-unquote, power of strength. So, no one should be especially surprised.
COLLINS: Yes. And just on the military aspect of this, for people who don’t know, I mean, General Kelly’s son was killed, serving. He’s buried in Section 60.
HABERMAN: That’s right.
COLLINS: At Arlington National Cemetery. So, I mean, his experience with this is not just that he served, also his son served as well.
HABERMAN: That’s right.
Watch above via CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins.
