White House Chief of Staff Makes Powerful Comments About Condolence Call Controversy

If you watch anything today, watch what retired General and White House Chief of Staff said at a press conference yesterday.  No matter what you think of this whole condolence call controversy this is pretty powerful stuff.  Here is an excerpt:

Invoking the death of his son, a Marine, in Afghanistan, White House chief of staff John Kelly delivered an impassioned defense on Thursday of President Trump’s outreach to families of four Americans recently killed in Niger. Kelly also denounced Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., as “selfish” for criticizing Trump for his message to one soldier’s widow.

“I appeal to America: Let’s not let this, maybe, last thing that’s held sacred in our society: a young man, young woman going out and giving his or her life for our country. Let’s try to somehow keep that sacred,” Kelly said in an unusual appearance in the White House briefing room. “It eroded a great deal yesterday by the selfish behavior of a member of Congress.”

Wilson had said that Trump callously told Myeshia Johnson — whose husband Army Sgt. La David Johnson was killed in an Oct. 4 patrol in Niger — that her husband “knew what he signed up for.” The congresswoman, a Johnson family friend, reportedly overheard parts of the conversation while riding in the same car as the widow. Trump flatly denied that account on Twitter Wednesday and said he had “proof.” The soldier’s mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, reportedly said that the president had “disrespected” her family.

But Kelly, a retired Marine general, broadly confirmed Wilson’s account — while explaining that Trump had drawn inspiration from what the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunford, told him when Robert Kelly was killed after stepping on a landmine while on patrol in Afghanistan in 2010.

“He said ‘Kell, he was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed. He knew what he was getting into, by joining the Marines — that 1 percent — he knew what the possibilities were, because we’re at war,” Kelly said. “‘When he died, he was surrounded by the best men on this Earth, his friends.’

“That’s what the president tried to say to four families the other day,” Kelly said. “I was stunned when I came to work yesterday morning, and brokenhearted, at what I saw a member of Congress doing. A member of Congress who listened in on a phone call from the president of the United States to a young wife, and, in his way, tried to express that opinion — he was a brave man, a fallen hero. He knew what he was getting himself into, because he enlisted — there was no reason to enlist, he enlisted. And he was where he wanted to be, exactly where he wanted to be, exactly the people he wanted to be with, when his life was taken. That was the message.”  [Yahoo News]

You can read more and watch the video at the link.  General Kelly definitely provides the needed context of what the President had tried to say.  The President probably should have took General Kelly’s advice and not made the call considering the difficulty he can sometimes have articulating what he means.  But like General Kelly I was surprised that a member of Congress after something like this happens, the first thing they think of is to find a camera to run in front of to score political points.  Then the media deciding to run with it like they have is just as bad.  Our political and media culture have definitely hit a new low.