In just the past week, Donald Trump has repeatedly called
his fellow Americans the enemy from within and even said
that he would use the United States military to go
after American citizens.
This is a window into who Donald Trump really is,
from the people who know him best, from the people
who worked with him side by side in the Oval
Office and in the Situation Room.
And it is clear from John Kelly's words that Donald
Trump is someone who, I quote, certainly falls into the
general definition of fascists.
So the bottom line is this.
We know what Donald Trump wants.
He wants unchecked power.
The question in 13 days will be what do the
American people want?
Joining me now is the reporter who broke this major
story, Michael Schmidt, investigative reporter for the New York Times.
He recently interviewed John Kelly in three on the record
discussions, which were all, of course, on tape.
Michael, it's great to have you here.
I what a moment for our democracy.
You know, this is not the first time the word
fascist has come up in the context of Donald Trump,
but this is the first time we've heard it on
tape from one of his closest advisors.
And I wonder if you could, you know, tell me
a little bit about how this came to be because
the recording of it seems so essential to the impact
of the story.
Was it difficult convincing General Kelly to release this to
the public?
So I, I, I think to your point, this is
all about the audio.
These are things that if you have followed the Trump
story that are sort of widely known.
His affinity for, for Hitler had been reported.
A lot of the things that came out had been
reported, but they had all been reported in text, sometimes
on background, sometimes Kelly.
Kelly has even put out statements himself, but in writing.
But I thought that it's our job as journalists to
find new ways to tell important stories to the public
about a range of different things.
The question of Donald Trump and the, you know, how
he would rule and what he would mean to the
democracy is obviously a really important one.
And I felt like the story was constantly getting bogged
down in the text.
And it allowed for the the the trueness of what
the facts were not to, to fully shine through.
So I thought that to do this, you had to
get the audio of Kelly.
You had to hear Kelly's voice.
You had to hear him struggling with trying to not
only explain Donald Trump's behavior, but sort of push himself
to do that because we are two weeks out from
an election.
You've never seen John Kelly on television.
He's not a talking head.
John Kelly didn't sell a book.
John Kelly isn't, you know, making the rounds.
This is someone, you know, who's goes to VFW halls
and wants, you know, is talking to young cadets and
and Marines and, and doesn't want anything to do with
partisan politics, hates partisan politics, maybe, you know, even to
a fault.
And it took a very, very long time to get
to this point.
I had asked Kelly to do this over the summer
and he said, you know, Mike, you're a nice guy,
but get lost.
And I, you know, we, we just didn't give up
and we continue to push.
But the difference here is the audio.
It's the fact that you can hear it and you
can hear it directly from the person.
If you're not relying on me writing a story about
it, you can play it and you can hear it
yourself.
And in a world in which we in the media
are struggling to deal with questions of fact and attacks
on the press, I have found that audio is a
really helpful way to bring things forward.
And I think in this case, it really helped to
tell this story and tell it in a way that
was new and different.
It sounds like the the inflection point in terms of
his decision making or his desire to come out was
Trump saying over the weekend of November or October 13th
talking, let's actually just play the audio talk about the
enemy within.
I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within.
We have some very bad people.
We have some sick people, radical left lunatics, and I
think they're the and and it should be very easily
handled by if necessary by National Guard or if really
necessary by the military that last port.
The military needs to handle the enemy from within.
I would imagine for a former military man, that's, that's
something that is unconscionable, right?
If John Kelly had a red line, that's over the
red line.
For Kelly to hear that a candidate who's running for
president who has already been president so has some appreciation
of what it's like to be president, would as president,
use the military against Americans, Just goes against pretty much
every bone in his body.
This man spent 40 years in the Marines.
He has taken on the ethos of a uniformed military
officer as much as as much as anyone could and
believes the United States military is something that should do
things abroad to defend the United States.
And that great power, that sacred power should not be
used domestically against Americans.
And that, that is, that is heading down the path
of unraveling the country, unraveling what George Washington wanted for
the country.
And he's someone who steeped in history and, and for
him, Kelly made a deal with himself.
He said, there's 2 two ways that I will speak
out.
And he's done this over the years.
If Trump says something that's wildly inaccurate, that relates to
me, I will speak out.
Or if there's something that he says that really needs
to be refuted that is damaging to the country, I
will speak out.
And this met that second standard.
And that's why we have audio of John Kelly.