Kamala Harris’ statements about Trump invoking Adolf Hitler were based on a “debunked hoax from The Atlantic.”
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Kamala Harris’ comments about Donald Trump and Hitler were not based on a ‘debunked hoax’
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John Kelly, a retired U.S. Marine Corps general and former President Donald Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, told The Atlantic and The New York Times that Trump spoke positively about Adolf Hitler.
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Social media posts misleadingly conflated those legitimate news articles with a falsified image that was created as a satirical take on The Atlantic’s report and bore the fabricated headline, "Trump is Literally Hitler."
Former President Donald Trump praised Adolf Hitler, according to news from The Atlantic and The New York Times. Some social media users have questioned the reports’ veracity.
"BREAKING: Kamala Harris instantly seizes upon an already DEBUNKED hoax from the Atlantic and weaponizes it to attack Donald Trump," read an Oct. 23 Threads post that shared a video of Vice President Kamala Harris speaking in front of her Washington, D.C., residence.
"So, yesterday," Harris says in the clip, "we learned that Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, a retired four-star general, confirmed that while Donald Trump was president, he said he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler had."
This post and others like it were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)
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Kelly, a retired U.S. Marine Corps general who was Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff and his Homeland Security secretary, told The New York Times and The Atlantic that Trump spoke favorably of Hitler. Those stories have not been debunked, as the post claims, and Harris clearly cited those statements in her remarks.
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The New York Times story published Oct. 22 included embedded audio clips of Kelly telling a reporter that Trump "commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too.’" Asked whether he believes Trump is a fascist, Kelly said, "Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So, he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist."
Separately, X owner Elon Musk, a Trump supporter, shared a falsified image of a story from The Atlantic with the fake headline "Trump is literally Hitler." The X user whose post Musk shared said twice the image had been created as satire. Although that image was debunked, the sources of Harris’ statements were not.
We rate the claim that Harris’ statements about Trump invoking Adolf Hitler were based on a "debunked hoax from The Atlantic," False.
Our Sources
Threads post (archived), Oct. 23, 2024
C-SPAN, Vice President Harris Reacts to John Kelly’s Comments About Former President Trump, Oct. 23, 2024
The Atlantic, Trump: ‘I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,’ Oct. 22, 2024
PolitiFact, No, the Atlantic did not publish an article with the headline ‘Trump is Literally Hitler,’ Oct. 23, 2024
X post, Oct. 22, 2024
X post, Oct. 22, 2024
The Atlantic, The Atlantic Did Not Publish an Article With the Headline "Trump Is Literally Hitler," Oct. 23, 2024
The New York Times, As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like A Dictator, Oct. 22, 2024
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Kamala Harris’ comments about Donald Trump and Hitler were not based on a ‘debunked hoax’
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