From the "fantastic" Viktor Orban to the "brilliant" Xi Jinping to the "good" Vladimir Putin, it is no secret that if Donald Trump returned to the White House, US foreign policy would risk radically changing.
But what most worries internal and external observers on the eve of the primaries in Georgia which could mathematically assign him the Republican nomination is the tycoon's fascination with the worst dictator in history: Adolf Hitler.
According to the revelations contained in the upcoming book 'The return of great powers', written by CNN anchor Jim Sciutto, the former president confided to his collaborators on more than one occasion that he felt admiration for the fuhrer.
“Hitler also did good things,” Trump argued in a conversation with his former chief of staff, General John Kelly, who recounted it in the book.
“He rebuilt the economy,” The Donald would have insisted, without however giving reasons for his belief.
Not only that, Trump's appreciation for the Nazi tyrant went beyond economic policies, the former aide revealed.
"He considered Lo to be a tough guy, so he admired him."
He envied Hitler, among other things, the "loyalty of his generals" and the fact that he "had them in his grip" and that he did not take into consideration the various assassination attempts carried out by his associates.
The tycoon's passion for the dictator was also discussed last December when, after he had used an expression attributable to Nazi rhetoric to attack migrants at a rally, it resurfaced in a 1990 interview with his ex-wife Ivana according to which her husband had a book with Hitler's speeches entitled the 'New Order' on his bedside table.
Ivanka's mother had also revealed that, at the time, when someone entered Trump's office he used to "click his heels, raise his arm and greet them with 'Heil Hitler'". The former president had obviously immediately distanced himself by claiming to never having had the fuhrer's speeches on the bedside table and never having read 'Mein Kampf', only to then reiterate in all the rallies, even the last ones, the infamous phrase "migrants poison the blood of the United States".
In Trump's controversial pantheon, another place of honor is occupied by the leader of the Kremlin, to whom the former president recently essentially gave the green light for any aggression against other countries, even if they are members of NATO.
Already when he was in the White House, Sciutto's book reveals, the tycoon considered the Alliance a sort of "provocation" by the West towards the Tsar.
"If he weren't there, Putin wouldn't do these things," he said.
And again, during a 2018 summit, after a series of complicated talks with some NATO partners, Trump went unbalanced by claiming that "the one with the leader of the Kremlin, the leader of America's greatest adversary, will be the easiest".
An attraction for autocrats around the world that General Kelly explains in the book like this: "He likes dictators so much because he is a dictator," Kelly said.
"Every new president when he gets to the White House is shocked that he has so little power over Congress, but he was shocked that he has no dictatorial power."
A statement that is all the more disturbing because it comes a few hours after the tycoon's mathematical coronation as Joe Biden's challenger in November.
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