Fox News host Howard Kurtz said Thursday he believes John Kelly’s claims about Donald Trump’s multiple Adolf Hitler references, but downplayed the former president’s intent. (Watch the video below.)
Kurtz was asked by fellow Fox News personality Martha MacCallum if the resurfaced allegations about Trump making admiring remarks about the Nazi leader would change voters’ minds before the Nov. 5 election.
Kelly, the retired general who was Trump’s chief of staff, said in interviews this week that Trump asked him why he couldn’t be more like Hitler’s generals and mentioned that “Hitler did some good things.” Kelly also said Trump met the definition of a fascist and “prefers the dictator approach.”
“First of all, I think that John Kelly is a highly respected four-star [general] who lost a son in Afghanistan,” Kurtz replied. “And I don’t believe that he is making things up. And nobody can really know what the private conversations may have been.”
Then Kurtz, who hosts “Media Buzz,” took an apologist turn.
“However, at the same time, Trump may have just been letting off steam about the loyalty he wanted from his generals compared to what he thought about Hitler’s generals,” he continued. “And I think that — it’s obviously not something that was made for public consumption. I think if these things were said, it was not an effort to say anything publicly about that. But his accusations are not gonna move 10 votes.”
Kurtz later said he didn’t think Kelly was grandstanding and was genuinely concerned vis-à-vis Trump’s recent labeling of his political opponents as the “enemy from within” while threatening military action against them.
However, given that the Hitler accusations have been raised before, “it sounds like noise at this point,” Kurtz continued.
Kurtz’s take would put him at odds with Fox News colleague Jesse Watters, who has called the claims a “hoax” intended to smear the Republican nominee shortly before his Nov. 5 election showdown against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.
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A former top aide for then-Vice President Mike Pence also disputed Kelly’s claims on MacCallum’s “The Story.”
