Pete Buttigieg told Fox News anchor he didn’t disagree with Donald Assetthe former chief of staff, retired general. John Kellybecause of Kelly’s assessment that his former boss was a potential autocrat and a “fascist.”

Buttigieg took to the right-wing channel on Sunday to spar with the network’s conservative hosts, an area where the Transportation Secretary has been particularly effective in defending the Biden-Harris administration’s record. While Trump was on stage in Kinston, North Carolinathe former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, faced questions from Neil Cavuto.

Cavuto asked the secretary if Kamala Harris Could Really “Break Bread” With RepublicansIf she and other Democrats called Trump a “fascist.” Buttigieg responded that Harris and others, including himself, only agreed with what Trump’s top aide was saying about the ex-president.

“I don’t think General Kelly is wrong. He knows Donald Trump much better than me,” Buttigieg said. “I would not contradict General Kelly in his assessment of his former boss. Look, we’ve never seen a president without his own chief of staff and his own vice president.”

Kelly’s description of Trump as an authoritarian figure came in an interview with The Atlantic last month. Regarding Buttigieg’s second point, Kelly and former Vice President Mike Pence refused to support the ex-president in the 2024 election, with Pence saying Trump asked him to violate his oath of office.

Trump’s former chief of staff also said The Atlantic at the same time as his former boss praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, especially Hitler’s generals, on several occasions. Kelly told the outlet that he was so surprised by the statement the first time he heard it that he initially didn’t believe what Trump had just said.

“Do you mean Bismarck’s generals?” » » Kelly said he asked Trump, according to The Atlantic. “I said, ‘You mean the Kaiser’s generals?’ Surely you can’t talk about Hitler’s generals? And he said, “Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.” »

Trump’s team has denied this exchange ever took place and called Kelly a “disgruntled” former employee — Kelly’s relationship with Trump publicly turned negative during his tenure as chief of staff, and he resigned in late 2018 .

Kelly is far from being the only former senior aide to the ex-president to have made such statements about his ex-boss; Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, another general, gave a similar characterization of Trump, calling him authoritarian.

Many of Trump’s White House staff also spoke out against his third bid for president, having left Trumpworld in disgust following the attack on the Capitol aimed at overturning the results of the January 6 election.