John Kelly, Donald Trump’s former White House chief of staff, discussed the former president’s apparent dictatorial aspirations for a new book by CNN’s Jim Sciutto.

“My theory on why he likes the dictators so much is that’s who he is,” Kelly said, according to an article published Monday about the forthcoming book by the CNN anchor and chief national security analyst.

Kelly told Sciutto, “Every incoming president is shocked that they actually have so little power without going to the Congress, which is a good thing. It’s Civics 101, separation of powers, three equal branches of government.”

“But in his case, he was shocked that he didn’t have dictatorial-type powers to send U.S. forces places or to move money around within the budget,” the quote continued. “And he looked at Putin and Xi and that nutcase in North Korea as people who were like him in terms of being a tough guy.”

Kelly was one of several former Trump administration officials who spoke to Sciutto for his book, “The Return of Great Powers,” reportedly warning that Trump is ill-prepared to lead the country in the current global climate, and that “they believe that the root of his admiration for these figures is that he envies their power.”

The book also revisits previously reported allegations that Trump praised Adolf Hitler, including Kelly’s claim that the former president lamented that his senior staff were not as loyal to him as the Nazi leader’s officers were.

“He truly believed, when he brought us generals in, that we would be loyal — that we would do anything he wanted us to do,” Kelly told Sciutto.

Reached for comment by Sciutto, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung did not address the allegations but slammed Kelly and John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser who also comments in the book, as “suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

In 2021, after Kelly recounted Trump’s praise for Hitler to a different journalist, a Trump spokesperson said the allegation was “totally false.”

Trump’s increasingly authoritarian language has prompted alarm ahead of the 2024 election, with many experts and former allies among the chorus of voices warning about the risks a second Trump term poses to democracy.

“The Return of Great Powers” examines “a new, more uncertain global order with reporting on the frontlines of power from existing wars to looming ones across the globe,” according to a synopsis. It’s out Tuesday.