Trump said Hitler 'did a lot of good things,' horrifying his chief of staff John Kelly, book says

• The Guardian obtained a copy of a new book about Trump by the reporter Michael Bender.
• In it, Bender wrote that Trump told John Kelly in 2018 that "Hitler did a lot of good things."
• Trump made the comment while in Europe to mark 100 years since the end of World War I, Bender said.

President Donald Trump said in November 2018 that "Hitler did a lot of good things," leaving his chief of staff at the time, John Kelly, reeling, according to a new book.

Trump made the comment during a tour of Europe to mark 100 years since the end of World War I, the Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender wrote in his upcoming book, "Frankly, We Did Win This Election," a copy of which The Guardian obtained.

Kelly was "stunned" by Trump's assertion, and when Kelly told him he was wrong, Trump "was undeterred," praising Hitler's efforts to revive the German economy in the 1930s, Bender reportedly wrote.

Kelly outright disagreed "and argued that the German people would have been better off poor than subjected to the Nazi genocide," Bender wrote, according to The Guardian.

Bender reportedly wrote that Kelly then told Trump: "You cannot ever say anything supportive of Adolf Hitler. You just can't."

Liz Harrington, a spokesperson for Trump, told Insider: "This is totally false. President Trump never said this. It is made up fake news, probably by a general who was incompetent and was fired."

Trump's comment about Hitler was prompted by Kelly giving Trump a brief history lesson about who fought on which side during the war, Bender reported, according to The Guardian.

Kelly "reminded the president which countries were on which side during the conflict" and "connected the dots from the First World War to the Second World War and all of Hitler's atrocities," Bender reportedly wrote.

In 1990, Vanity Fair reported that Trump's wife at the time, Ivana Trump, had once told her lawyer that her husband kept a book of Hitler's speeches, called "My New Order," near his bed.

The 45th president's 2018 trip to Europe was controversial for another reason.

The Atlantic reported that ahead of a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, a US military graveyard in France, Trump called the American troops resting there "losers."

Trump also said the more than 1,800 Marines who died at Belleau Wood, France, in World War I were "suckers" for getting killed, The Atlantic reported.

Trump repeatedly denied making those remarks on the trip.