CNN asked John Kelly, chief of staff to Donald Trump in 2017-18, if he wanted to say anything more about his former boss in light of recent developments. He did:
What can I add that has not already been said? A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family — for all Gold Star families — on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.
A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women. A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason — in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.
There is nothing more that can be said. God help us.
I wonder why more of Trump's opponents don't focus on this? Trump's casual contempt for those who serve and die in war isn't just revolting even for him, it's the kind of thing that might—might—influence the opinions of Trump's fans. At the very least, highlighting this stuff would force Trump to deny it. Even that's worth something.
Because they're not qualified to be leaders of the free world, and as such, they lack courage to stand up for it, Democracy, and America.
Key question for Kelly: What the Hell did you think this guy was like when you signed up to work for him? Were you oblivious to the signals he's been giving off for decades?
Honestly, I think they thought they could form a barrier to protect the country from this lunatic.
I think his opponents don't focus on it because they know the Trump faithful don't care. MAGA has only one interest: making the libs cry.
No, Kelly was all-in MAGA from the get-go. He might not have been a complete QAnon-addled lunatic like Mike Flynn, but he knew *exactly* what Trump was and liked the cut of his jib.
What, you never heard of the small group of Deep Staters who called themselves "the Steady State"? Who embedded in the Defendant's administration to try to keep his craziness in check, sometimes by removing papers from his desk so he couldn't sign insane executive orders?
Give me a fucking break. All the most horrible qualities and traits of Donald Trump were on full display for at least a year before he took office -- more if you actually cared to look -- and John Kelly *chose* to serve both as his DHS and Chief of Staff. If you voluntarily went to work for Trump in January 2021, you were, and are, a piece of amoral shit who needs to spend your remaining days weeping in sackcloth and ashes doing penance for the fuckery you have wrought.
And it's a little rich for Kelly now to be ragging on Trump for his disrespect of the troops when he himself jumped all over a Florida Congresswoman who was upset that Trump had told the widow of a KIA Army special forces operator in a "condolence" call that "well, he knew what he was signing up for." FFS.
I fully agree, and am baffled why the Democrats don't articulate these stories instead of just repeating, ad nauseam, the vague talking point "threat to democracy," usually without even naming WHO is the "threat to democracy."
On a related note, I just saw an NBC news clip about trump suggesting Milley's execution. Naturally, instead of framing it as a disgusting thing for a presidential candidate to say, they went with their tried-and-true A-versus-B framing, where they ask Milley "how do you respond?" Thus setting it up as an opportunity for Milley to "defend himself" against trump's "accusation" of treason. I can hardly wait for the headline "Milley fires back against Trump."
What Milley should say there is something along the lines of 'That pea-brained idiot can suck my dick, except I wouldn't want him to so he's shit out of luck'.
Some wingnuts running for office might try to make hay out of that but for most of the people who vote for Republicans that's the kind of conversation they want to have, they would think that a perfectly fine response.
Because they know what's inside their refrigerator and that's the end of it, everything else is a conspiracy theory. The more you entertain them on their brainwave the more they'll mellow out.
What Milley should say is, "Are you so cowardly that you cannot actually take a stand against this sort of behavior yourself, and you need me to provide the quote for you?"
They should have ask the "militaristic" people of the Republican party what they think about it.
I want to know why Jake Tapper didn’t ask Kelly to comment on this account which is from the same book:
“ Ex-aide: John Kelly was disgusted as Trump wondered what it might be like to have sex with Ivanka:
Trump’s former chief of staff had to “remind the president that Ivanka was his daughter,” writes Miles Taylor”
Kelly told Miles Taylor that Trump opponent talked to him about wondering what it might be like to have sex with Ivanka and CNN doesn’t bother bringing up this evidence of Trump’s incestuous lust? This is the same media that had no problem reporting on Hunter Biden’s nude pictures or reporting in great detail about Clinton’s sexual consensual acts with Monica Lewinsky (information they got from Brett Kavanaugh who insisted on including them in the Starr report). However when it comes to Trump apparently CNN feels the need to protect the dignity of the presidency or the sensibilities of the public.
There was an item at electoral-vote.com on this topic just this morning: https://electoral-vote.com/#item-4
It's worth the three-minute read.
Good article!
This article discusses convincing Trump supporters, which are described as "What they love is his xenophobia, bigotry, and ability to make liberals' blood boil. They don't care about specific policies on anything."
The more interesting question is how to convince people that are not actually Trump supporters, but will vote for him in the general election because they are "red till I dead" or just think that gas prices are too high or are worried that Harris may become president.
Trump's opponents have learned that attacking Trump hurts them, not Trump. DeSantis thought attacking from the right would work, but it hasn't. That, at least, has only been somewhat damaging to DeSantis. This particular criticism, because it is so unambiguously damning, is probably classified as a media/deep state/liberal lie by GOP primary voters. Any Trump opponent who launches this attack will be seen as siding with the "communists." It's long been clear that Trump supporters don't care about even the most serious accusations coming from former staffers; they are automatically enrolled in the Deep State Conspiracy the moment they utter them. Picking up a cudgel like that would reduce what little support these candidates have and make it impossible to exploit some Trump-removing catastrophe, which is evidently what they're all hoping for.
The only thing that would keep Trump from seizing a third nomination was if the GOP was actually an independent political party that could tell its more reactionary base members "no, we're not nominating a violent, treasonous authoritarian to be president" and get on with a primary featuring non-Hitler-admiring candidates. Unfortunately, the entire Republican party, from the local up to the national level, is a limp, castrated hand puppet belonging to Donald Trump, so here we are. They shit their bed and now have to lie in it.
Some of Trump's fiercest critics are people who helped him inflict the damage that he did. What they say now is what they knew when they were helping him. I don't pay much attention to the likes of Kelly and Chris Christie and Nikki Haley.
But some people on the right, and maybe even in the middle, pay some attention to them, so there is ome significance to what they say.
Isn't the answer that in 2016 he had a bunch of incidents that indicated his less than reverent attitude towards military service (insulting McCain for getting captured and held as a POW, his attacks on the family of Humayun Khan, etc.) and they didn't move the needle any?
The Right either a totally corrupt or perversely admirable transactional relationship with Donald Trump (depending on how you look at it, I guess). They know exactly what he is (even if they won't always admit it publicly), and don't care because he delivered for them.
This is a fantastic quote. I think may people like Kelly truly thought they could toe the party line and still prevent Trump from doing as much damage as possible. Possibly they were right, who knows?
There were quite a few Serious People who thought, in 2016, that Trump's obnoxious buffoonery on the campaign trail was just an act, and that once in office Trump would become more dignified and serious. I never thought that, but a lot of non-foolish conservatives did. Kelly might have been one of them.
Or maybe Kelly saw clearly what Trump was, and took the job anyway because somebody had to restrain this buffoon once in office.
Either way, I'd like to tone down the criticism of Kelly. He was one of the few people in the Trump Administration who sounded sane and decent. Which is probably why he didn't last that long.
Other than the "I think separating families at the border is a good way to deter asylum seekers" Kelly -- he might be a great guy.
Unbelievable how Trump has moved the goalposts to where Kelly and Cheney are seen as reasonable.
There were quite a few Serious People who thought, in 2016, that Trump's obnoxious buffoonery on the campaign trail was just an act, and that once in office Trump would become more dignified and serious.
In 2016, I thought Andy Kaufman had faked his own death in order to play the role of Donald Trump running for president. Kaufman being Kaufman, I was sure that, on the off chance that he won, he would continue to play the same role as president.
Fck Kelly. I don’t care what he thought he was doing, he was enabling Trumpism to where it is today, so he can go off and weep in private if he regrets it now.
If you haven't already, you should read Mother Night by Vonnegut.
You are what you pretend to be.
And if you are in the employ of someone "pretending" to be an autocrat, you're enabling an autocrat. The harm done is unmitigated by your motives.
I lived half my life in the NY media market, going back to the Central Park Five miscarriage of justice, which Trump enthusiastically endorsed, even after it had been exposed. So I have long known what a miserable excuse for a human being TFG is. And still, it is hard for me to believe that he actually called American war dead ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’. It’s just hard to imagine someone that depraved. For the deplorables, no doubt it’s easy to discount the quote, though it was never convincingly denied.
The deplorables don’t care. Even if they themselves are in the military or are disabled, they have no trouble laughing their asses off at other injured military service members. Deplorables have zero decency, integrity, morality or humanity.
Here's Trump with his attorneys,
https://twitter.com/MikeSington/status/1708928015915434381
I'll give anybody $20 who can prove that guy on the left hasn't been lobotomized.
Trump's casual contempt for those who serve and die in war isn't just revolting even for him, it's the kind of thing that might—might—influence the opinions of Trump's fans.
Very few these days, Kevin, very few. His hardcore supporters are rotten to their nihilist cores, just like Trump himself, and are as contemptuous for American values every bit as much as he is. And the "just go along" contingent (those who support him mainly for economic reasons) are too selfish and/or stupid* to realize their shortsightedness.
At least with respect to today's GOP, cynicism is the new realism, and Kevin's not sufficiently realistic.
*Ask Jack Ma whether authoritarianism works out great for billionaires.
"His hardcore supporters are rotten..."
But it may effect those who may vote for him, even though they are not hard-core supporters.
Maybe when we get close to th egeneral election will see more of that (or maybe not).
"I wonder why more of Trump's opponents don't focus on this?"
Because they are thinking about their future prospects beyond the current election cycle, and believe that annoying Trump supporters will be bad for these prospects. That means that they are intending to continue to pander to Trump supporters.
This notion of Trump vs. Gold Star families is distorted. It stems from an incident involving Khizr and Ghazala Khan, where Khizr Khan criticized Trump's Muslim-ban proposal. Trump responded with a comment speculating about Ghazala's absence of comment possibly being for religious reasons. There was nothing in Trump's statement that disrespected the family. It may have been an uninformed comment, but there was nothing hostile about it. But this incident has been spun as "Trump dissed a Gold Star family" ever since.