February 13, 2020: Former White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly Criticizes President

 

2/13/20: A fourteenth case of COVID 19, the recently-named coronavirus that erupted in China, has been diagnosed in the United States. 

Then, later in the day, a fifteenth. 

The death toll rises in China to 1,310, with a handful of deaths reported round the world, including the first in Japan. Globally, there have been more than 60,000 confirmed cases. 

The number of infections reported on a cruise ship quarantined in a Japanese port rises to 219.

 

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IN OTHER NEWS, John McEntee is back at work in the White House. He’s just the kind of guy you want coming in one door while individuals who testified under oath are escorted out another. 

McEntee was last seen in 2018 leaving his old job in the White House, when he was fired because of a reported gambling habit. Now the 29-year-old is back and “tasked with vetting presidential appointments and recruiting candidates to work across various White House agencies.” According to The Hill, “The office is responsible for thousands of lower-level appointees [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted].”

 

But wait! There’s more! Former White House Babe Hope Hicks, last seen telling major whoppers about Russian contacts with the Trump 2016 campaign, also returns. Hicks, still gorgeous, will work with Senior White House Advisor Jared Kushner and political director Brian Jack. 

She will not, however, be part of the communications team, which will greatly reduce her chances of lying to reporters. 

Kellyanne Conway will handle those duties.

Hicks returns! She won't be lying as much as before.

 

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BUT WAIT, WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!! 

There’s still more! 

As reported by various media outlets, former White House Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly spoke for 75 minutes at Drew University Wednesday night. (We combine reports from The Atlantic, Politico, MorristownGreen, The Hill and NorthJersey.com. below.) 

Summing up, Kelly essentially let his audience know that Trump sucks at being president. Let’s go to examples:

 

The Media 

“The media, in my view, and I feel very strongly about this,” the general says, “is not the enemy of the people.” 

He adds, “We need a free media. That said, you have to be careful about what you are watching and reading, because the media has taken sides.” 

He mentions, for example, President Trump’s favorite channel. “So if you only watch Fox News, because it’s reinforcing what you believe, you are not an informed citizen.” Or an informed president. 

 

Firing Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman 

The former White House Chief of Staff has harsh words for Trump, in regard to his decision to fire Lt. Col. Vindman. 

When Vindman listened to the president’s call on July 25, 2019, and came away deeply disturbed, Gen. Kelly says he did exactly what young U.S. military officers are trained to do. “We teach them to always tell the truth, to tell truth to power,” Kelly said. “He did exactly what we teach them to do from cradle to grave.” 

Kelly is clear: 

Through the Obama administration up until that phone call, the policy of the U.S. was militarily to support Ukraine in their defensive fight against…the Russians. And so, when the president said that continued support would be based on X, that essentially changed.

 

And that’s what that guy [Vindman] was most interested in.

 

When Vindman heard Trump tell Zelensky he wanted to see the Biden family investigated, that was like hearing “an illegal order.” “We teach them, ‘Don’t follow an illegal order. And if you’re ever given one, you’ll raise it to whoever gives it to you that this is an illegal order, and then tell your boss.’” 

 

Kim Jong-un and North Korea 

What about North Korea? Kelly says President Trump is not making headway in his efforts to disarm the North. Kim Jong-un “will never give his nuclear weapons up.” Trump “tried –that’s one way to put it. But it didn’t work. I’m an optimist most of the time, but I’m also a realist, and I never did think Kim would do anything other than play us for a while, and he did that fairly effectively.” 

 

Interference with Military Courts 

We know the president has no respect for the federal courts. Kelly was also disgusted by Trump’s decision to overturn a military court’s war crimes conviction of Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher, a Navy Seal. 

“Gallagher,” he explains, 

was not a guy who represents our military in any way, shape or form. The military justice system worked, he was found guilty of certain things. He should have been ashamed of himself, and he should have been sent home. So the idea that the commander-in-chief intervened there, in my opinion, was exactly the wrong thing to do.

 

When a woman shouts that Trump had “elevated” Gallagher, Kelly looked out at the audience. 

“Yep,” is all he says. 

The crowd, mostly college students, reportedly applauds. 

(Gallagher had been charged with multiple war crimes, including murder. He was convicted of only one. Wikipedia has an excellent review of his case and the president’s intervention. We have already mentioned Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer, who resigned as a result.)

 

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YOU HAD TO KNOW that President Trump wasn’t going to take this kind of criticism lying down. And so, he reacted as he often has before, by making it clear he has terrible judgment. 

 

“He knew full well that he was way over his head.” 

Having promised to bring only “the best people” to work with him in Washington D.C., Trump keeps hiring people who he later says he never should have hired. Rex Tillerson, his first Secretary of State, he later said, “was as dumb as a rock.” His first Secretary of Defense, Gen. James Mattis, Trump eventually labeled the “most-overrated general” in history. His personal lawyer for a decade, Michael Cohen, was a man Trump said he greatly respected, a “good family man.” That was: until Cohen began cooperating with investigators. Then Trump sent out his new personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to call Mr. Cohen “a pathological liar.” 

So, now it was General Kelly’s turn to face the Twitter wrath. “When I terminated John Kelly, which I couldn’t do fast enough, he knew full well that he was way over his head. Being Chief of Staff just wasn’t for him,” the president tweeted on Wednesday. Kelly, he continued, “came in with a bang, went out with a whimper, but like so many X’s, he misses the action & just can’t keep his mouth shut, which he actually has a military and legal obligation to do.” 

It’s interesting to note that the president claims he couldn’t get rid of General Kelly “fast enough.” Kelly took the White House job on July 31, 2017. He remained in his position until January 2, 2019.

Not the first person to work with Trump and come away appalled.