"He commented more than once that, 'You know, Hitler did some good things, too,'" Kelly recalled to The Times.

Kelly said he would usually quash the conversation by saying "nothing (Hitler) did, you could argue, was good," but that Trump would occasionally bring up the topic again.

In his interview with The Atlantic, Kelly recalled that when Trump raised the idea of needing "German generals," Kelly would ask if he meant "Bismarck's generals," referring to Otto von Bismarck, the former chancellor of the German Reich who oversaw the unification of Germany.

"Surely you can't mean Hitler's generals," Kelly recalled asking Trump. To which the former president responded, "Yeah, yeah, Hitler's generals."