Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Over the past few months, Donald Trump has racked up a number of prominent endorsements, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former campaign rival Robert F. Kennedy Jr. But the remaining weeks before Election Day have become defined by those whose support he lacks, namely several key members of his presidential administration. Former members of Trump’s Cabinet as well as high-ranking military leaders who reported to him have issued stark warnings about the possibility of a second Trump term, describing their former boss as “fascist” and “dangerous.” Here’s a look at the biggest names coming out against Trump as the election nears.
He is a retired four-star Marine Corps general who first served as the secretary of Homeland Security before he became White House chief of staff for nearly two years. The two’s relationship soured during Kelly’s brief stint, with rumored reports of Kelly privately trashing Trump, though he denied them at the time. Recently, though, he’s made his negative feelings about Trump clearer. When asked if he believed Trump was a fascist, Kelly said the term seemed to fit him.
“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, for sure,” he said in an interview with the New York Times.
He told the Times that Trump “prefers the dictator approach to government,” adding that he “never accepted the fact that he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world — and by power, I mean an ability to do anything he wanted, anytime he wanted.”
Kelly also confirmed reporting from other outlets that Trump had previously praised Adolf Hitler. “He commented more than once that, ‘You know, Hitler did some good things, too,’” Kelly told the Times.
Kelly also confirmed The Atlantic’s reporting from 2020 that Trump had referred to World War II soldiers buried in France as “suckers” and “losers” during a 2018 visit, telling the outlet that wasn’t the only time Trump used those words. “President Trump used the terms suckers and losers to describe soldiers who gave their lives in the defense of our country. There are many, many people who have heard him say these things. The visit to France wasn’t the first time he said this,” he told the outlet this week.
In his recently published book War, veteran journalist Bob Woodward cited comments from Mark Milley, who once served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the book, Woodward writes that he ran into Milley, a source for a previous work, at a reception in 2023, where he expressed his growing concerns about Trump. “He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country,” Milley told Woodward, per The Guardian. Woodward writes that Milley fears being recalled to uniform to be court-martialed under a second Trump administration, according to the Washington Post.
In 2023, Milley took what many considered to be a swipe at Trump during his passionate resignation speech as the top U.S. general. “We are unique among the world’s militaries,” he said. “We don’t take an oath to a country, we don’t take an oath to a tribe, we don’t take an oath to a religion. We don’t take an oath to a king, or a queen, or a tyrant or a dictator.”
In an interview on The Bulwark podcast, Woodward said that Milley’s words resonated with another former member of Trump’s administration: James Mattis, the retired four-star Marine Corps general who served as Trump’s first Defense secretary. According to Woodward, Mattis reached out to him via email, telling him that he agreed with Milley’s thoughts on Trump as recounted in his book.
When asked if Mattis’s email was him backing the book’s warnings about a future second Trump term, Woodward said, “Yes, most certainly. And an endorsement of this process of trying to explicitly say, ‘Let’s make sure we don’t try to downplay the threat, because the threat is high.’”
This is not the first time that Mattis has expressed his distaste for Trump. In a lengthy statement published by The Atlantic in June 2020, Mattis wrote, “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort.”
The former general was similarly scathing following the riot in the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, writing in a statement, “Today’s violent assault on our Capitol, an effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule, was fomented by Mr. Trump. His use of the Presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice.”
In an interview on CNN earlier this month, the former Defense secretary was asked about recent comments made by Trump, suggesting he would use the military against American citizens that he deemed “the enemy within.” Esper said he believed that Trump would do such a thing.
“Yes, I do, of course, because I lived through that, and I saw over the summer of 2020, where President Trump and those around him wanted to use the National Guard, in various capacities, in cities such as Chicago and Portland and Seattle,” he said.
On the possibility of a future Trump presidency, Esper said he worries that it’ll look quite similar to his final year in office. “My concern is that the first year of the second Trump term will look more like the last year of the first Trump term,” he said. “I think President Trump has learned the key is getting people around you who will do your bidding, who will not push back, who will implement what you want to do. And I think he’s talked about that. His acolytes have talked about that. I think loyalty will be the first litmus test.”
Esper, who was first sworn into office in July 2019, was fired by Trump via tweet shortly after the 2020 election. Earlier this year, Esper said he believed that Trump was a threat to American democracy. “I do regard him as a threat to democracy, democracy as we know it, our institutions, our political culture, all those things that make America great and have defined us as the oldest democracy on this planet.”
Pence’s break with Trump was, of course, far more public than anyone else in the Trump administration: The former vice-president’s refusal to go along with Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election results led to chants for his execution from the president’s supporters as they stormed the Capitol.
Earlier this year, Pence made it clear that he had no intentions of wading into the presidential election after his unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination. And, unlike other officials, he did not issue a specific warning about Trump’s behavior or intentions. But he did make one thing clear: “It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year,” he said in an interview with Fox News.
Pence said that he was proud of the accomplishments he and Trump had achieved during their tenure, but that there was a significant gulf between them on issues including China and abortion. “During my presidential campaign, I made it clear that there were profound differences between me and President Trump on a range of issues, and not just our difference on my constitutional duties that I exercised on January the 6th,” he said.
