Former Joint Chiefs Chairman: Sad Kelly Supports Trump No Matter What

Generals in the White House could politicize the military, warns Michael Mullen.

A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Sunday slammed John Kelly for backing Donald Trump “no matter what.”

Retired Adm. Michael Mullen said on ABC’s “This Week” that he was particularly disappointed Kelly backed Trump after the president’s ugly confrontation over his controversial condolence call to the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson, one of four soldiers killed in Niger. The White House chief of staff defended Trump at a press briefing in October after Myeshia Johnson — and Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) — complained that the president apparently couldn’t remember the fallen soldier’s name on the phone, and told his widow that her dead husband knew what he “signed up for.”

Besides taking a position against a “Gold Star family,” Mullen said, “John [also] ends up politicizing the death of his own son.” After the Johnson controversy, Trump complained that Kelly didn’t get a phone call from Barack Obama after Kelly’s son, a Marine, was killed in Afghanistan. Kelly’s actions indicated that he “clearly is very supportive of the president no matter what,” Mullen said. “That was really a sad moment for me.”

Mullen then highlighted his concerns about retired or active generals serving in the highly charged political atmosphere of the current White House. Men like Kelly, national security adviser H.R. McMaster (a lieutenant general still on active duty) and Defense Secretary James Mattis bring stability and tended to reassure people during a “chaotic year,” said Mullen. But politics is a “foreign” and “difficult” atmosphere for them, he added. And their presence could be dangerous because it threatens to politicize the military, Mullen added.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kelly-trump-sellout-mullen_us_5a1b664ae4b0d4906cafa978?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009


Trump is destroying the United States one established institution at a time. The State department is a mess.