Earlier this year, there was talk in the media about when the Biden campaign would be ‘full of Hitler’.

What that meant was: If they started talking about Donald Trump and the Nazi leader this early, what ammunition would they have left for October?

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Well, it’s the end of October and Hitler’s attack has begun.

It’s not like no one has heard this before. Trump’s opponents in the media landscape have regularly compared him to Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini. Magazines have depicted him with a small mustache. He has been dismissed as an aspiring dictator who would blow up American democracy, with few of the guardrails that stood in his way during his first term.

But now we have John Kelly, his second chief of staff, denouncing his ex-boss in a series of three on-the-record interviews with the New York Times, which were recorded and posted on the paper’s site.

CNN commentator Scott Jennings addressed Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly’s claim that former President Trump once spoke positively about Hitler in comments that Trump has refuted. (CNN)

Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general who lost a son in Afghanistan, said he went public because he was disturbed by Trump’s attacks on “the enemy within,” which, as the former president told me in our weekend interview, also Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi. And Kelly was equally concerned that he might use the military against Americans.

Kelly says in the Times audio that Trump meets his definition of a fascist. And in the context of wanting his generals (like Kelly and Pentagon chief Jim Mattis) to be personally loyal to him, “he noted more than once, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too.'”

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Kelly says he told the president “you should never say that” and explained some of the history of Nazi Germany. (Hitler’s generals tried to kill him more than once.)

The general also said Trump called soldiers “losers” and “suckers” and could not understand their sacrifice. If these and other passages sound familiar, that’s because they’ve been reported on before in the Atlantic and elsewhere, quite clearly with Kelly as a background source.

Enten thought Trump’s gains among independent voters in key swing states were remarkable and a good sign for his campaign. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung fired back, saying the former official offered “debunked stories,” had “called himself” and suffered from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

My question is this: Will John Kelly’s comments change the minds of Trump voters?

They may dismiss the comments as old news. Or say that Trump didn’t really mean it, but was just blowing off steam. Or ask Kelly’s motivation for going public in the latter part of the campaign.

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It’s not that I’m defending the comments as reported by Kelly, who is free to say whatever he wants. I have absolutely nothing good to say about Hitler or the Nazis. I don’t agree with everything Trump says, just like I don’t agree with everything Kamala Harris says.

But how many Trump voters, who lived through nine years of media attacks on the 45th president and saw the violence of January 6, will abandon him now? The answer, in my opinion, is very little.

U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks at a watch party following a presidential debate with former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at the Cherry Street Pier in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

Still, it gave the vice president an opening, since yesterday’s bomb was detonated by a man who was the top staffer in Trump’s White House. She read a statement to reporters in Washington without answering questions:

“It is deeply disturbing and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump is invoking Adolf Hitler, the man responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans. All of this is further proof to the American people of who Donald Trump really is.” is,” Harris said.

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I once had a candid conversation with Kelly at a media party at the White House, and when I looked up, ten other reporters were surrounding us, straining to hear what the man who kept a low profile around the press had to say. At the time, the former Homeland Security secretary was touted as the man who would bring military discipline to a chaotic White House after Reince Priebus was let go.

Now the ‘full Hitler’ moment has arrived. Whether it has much impact on a candidate who has survived two impeachment proceedings, the fallout after January 6 and two assassination attempts is at least doubtful.