Chief of Staff John Kelly
Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is now a target of criticism due to his remarks on disrespectful comments made during his tenure. These comments include the President’s repetitive statements about service members and veterans, which Kelly claims were false and led to disputes with various groups over allegations of disloyalty.
In an interview with CNN on Monday, Kelly verified the reports of his objections to former President Donald Trump, especially those pertaining to incidents during his presidency. “Someone who thinks that those who serve in uniform, or those who get killed in action, or wounded in action, or prisoners of war are ‘suckers’ for doing so,” Kelly said. “And that they are not ‘good for’ anything. The President did not understand the significance of these people.
He continued, “Someone who suggests that those who have fought for our country for 40 years are ‘losers’ because they ‘got wiped out’ is someone who cannot comprehend what America is.” No more can be said than that, Kelly added, “God help us.” Reached for comment by ABC News, Stephen Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, said, “John Kelly has fully mocked himself with the baseless narratives he has constructed because he did not serve the President well in his capacity as Chief of Staff.”
Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general, left his position as Chief of Staff to Trump in 2018 amid disputes within the administration, during which Kelly, Trump, and White House aides exchanged grievances. Kelly found himself back in the spotlight in 2020 when he was mentioned during Trump’s first impeachment trial, with Kelly serving as the key witness in the Senate’s investigation into Trump’s request for Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and Democrats. During a phone call, Trump urged Zelensky to work with Attorney General William Barr and Rudy Giuliani on the matter.
In the call, Zelensky raised a complaint about the abrupt removal of U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. After the call, which was made in July 2019, details of the conversation became known, but an intelligence whistleblower made the first allegation against Trump. Ultimately, the Senate acquitted Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. During Kelly’s time at the White House, there was an increase in public disagreement between him and President Trump. It is widely believed that most of these remarks were given to Kelly for reporting or book purposes.
General, Whose Son Robert Kelly Was Killed During Duty in Afghanistan
General, whose son Robert Kelly was killed during duty in Afghanistan, confirms all of this and more on the network. Kelly said that Trump is “someone who thinks those who defend their country, or shoot in war causing severe injuries, or spend years targeting war prisoners as violent, are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there’s nothing in it for them.'”
Trump often attacked John McCain, who was a 2008 Republican presidential candidate and a critic of the GOP, as a “loser.” Serving as a Navy pilot during the Vietnam War, McCain was shot down, captured, and became a target of violence. During his first White House campaign in 2015, Trump said McCain was “not a war hero. I like people who weren’t captured.”
In Jeffrey Goldberg’s widely-read 2020 story for The Atlantic, Trump was also quoted telling his aides that former President George H.W. Bush was a “loser” because he was shot down as a Navy pilot during another great war. Kelly continued and said that Trump “was someone who didn’t want to see wounded soldiers because ‘it doesn’t look good to me.'”
Peter Baker and Susan Glasser also documented Trump’s callous treatment of injured soldiers in their book, “The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III, 2017-2021.” In the search for military parades in Washington, Trump opposed labeling wounded soldiers as heroes, saying, “Look, I don’t want any wounded guy in the parade. … It’s not my thing.”
On CNN, Kelly refuted that, saying Trump “was someone who during the 2016 campaign on live television, in front of a gold-star family – all gold-star families, really – mocked and denigrated, and said, ‘Our fallen heroes, they’re losers.’ ‘They’re just suckers for having gotten themselves in a position where they’ve gotten blown up.'”
During his 2016 presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton, Trump engaged in a public feud with the parents of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq in 2004. He resurrected that dispute with Khan’s mother in a phone call in 2017, a call Kelly defended and revealed he had been asked to make despite a positive COVID-19 test at the end of 2020.
Trump’s story of avoiding French cemeteries for the first great war in 2018 was also reported in The Atlantic. And still, Kelly did nothing. Kelly described Trump as someone who approached issues like protection, women, minorities, evangelical Christians, Jews, and those who served in the military with a purely transactional mindset. He didn’t embody the role of a protector in any way.
According to Kelly, Trump lacked a deep understanding of what America truly represents. He was someone who, rather than appreciating the sacrifices made by dedicated individuals who served their country for decades in times of peace and war, would label them as traitors. This was Kelly’s way of highlighting the need for action against such a perspective.
Last month, in a speech on his retirement, Trump referred to the American armed forces as “dictators,” “completely” served the constitution, and “extolled the ruthless.” Kelly told CNN that Trump “is someone who mocks and denigrates roles and rule of law, other than insulting this story.”
Political Info: Under Investigation
