Fox News host Shannon Bream confronted Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, on Sunday about whether he thinks Donald Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly and his former principal military adviser Mark Milley were “lying” when they said the former president is a “fascist.”
Bream asked Rubio, a staunch supporter of Trump, on Fox News Sunday, “Do you think people like [retired U.S. Army] General Milley, like [retired U.S. Marine General] John Kelly are lying?”
“Yes. I do,” the senator responded. “Let’s say you don’t want to call them a liar, I would say it’s very dubious seeing these accusations coming at the very last minute right before an election.”
Newsweek reached out to Rubio’s office and Trump’s campaign via email for comment late Sunday afternoon. It also reached out to Georgetown University on Sunday afternoon via email for comment from Milley, who is a distinguished fellow in residence there. Newsweek could not find a contact for Kelly.
Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla
Earlier this week, Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, told The New York Times that based on his experience with the former president, Trump met the definition of a “fascist.” He also said that Trump told him that “[Adolf] Hitler did some good things.”
In response, Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, called Kelly’s accounts of his experience in Trump’s administration “debunked stories” and said Kelly had “beclowned” himself.
Kelly’s remarks come after it was reported by The Independent and other media outlets that Milley, who was nominated by Trump to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2018, called Trump “fascist to the core” after it was included in legendary journalist Bob Woodward’s new book, War.
Cheung previously told Newsweek in response to Milley’s comments that the retired general is a “woke train-wreck” and that “it’s no surprise he pals around with a washed-up fiction writer like Bob Woodward to peddle lies and misinformation.”
Following Kelly’s comments, Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, was asked at a CNN town hall by host Anderson Cooper earlier this month, “Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?” To which Harris replied, “Yes, I do. Yes, I do.”
During his Sunday interview appearance on Fox News, Rubio questioned Milley’s and Kelly’s motives for their comments, suggesting it was to secure jobs after their work in the administration.
“These are people that worked in the [Trump] administration or around the administration and then they figured out pretty quickly, if we want jobs after we leave this administration, we have to become anti-Trumpers,” the senator said.
He continued: “If you in fact believed, as some of these people claim, that Donald Trump is all these horrible things—Nazi, fascist, all these crazy terms they throw around—why didn’t you stand up and walk out of that administration the moment you heard those terms. Why did you say that at the time and not wait until after the fact.”
On ABC News’ This Week on Sunday, Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, and another Trump ally, defended the former president’s character and leadership style, telling co-anchor Jonathan Karl, “He was a strong leader on the things that matter the most, whether you like him or not, that’s up to you. He’s not a fascist, he’s not Hitler.”
He added that these retired generals are “trying to scare Americans that this man [Trump] can’t fix the problems we need fixed. I reject that. I was there too. I was around him. I don’t think he’s a fascist. I think he will be a strong president to get this country back on track, to revive our economy, to secure our border and put out fires.”
