The mainstream media is abuzz Tuesday over what they say is former Trump chief of staff John Kelly “confirming” that Trump made disparaging remarks about those who served in the military. Once again, the public is being duped.
Kelly provided a statement to CNN’s Jake Tapper, which Tapper described as “on-the-record confirmation of a number of damning stories about statements Trump made behind closed doors attacking U.S. service members and veterans, listing a number of objectionable comments Kelly witnessed Trump make firsthand.”
The problem is that the statement Tapper cited makes no such assertion that Kelly personally witnessed Trump making these statements. Here’s exactly how Tapper reported it:
“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly said, when asked if he wanted to weigh in on his former boss in light of recent comments made by other former Trump officials. “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,” Kelly continued. “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,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”
Not once does the statement quote Kelly as saying that he witnessed Trump making any of the comments — he’s merely reacting to the alleged statements as if they were true. While one could argue that maybe Tapper didn’t include that part of Kelly’s statement, it’s hard to believe that Tapper would leave that out.
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Tapper insists that Kelly’s statement confirmed the previously debunked story from The Atlantic citing anonymous sources claiming that Trump didn’t want to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018 because the troops there who died in battle were “losers” and “suckers.” Over twenty witnesses who were with President Trump on that trip to Paris, including John Bolton, who is no fan of Trump, disputed the story. Each of them went on the record.
Despite bipartisan calls for the anonymous sources to come forward, no one has gone on the record to publicly confirm the accusation. Even Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, admitted during an interview with CNN that a key detail of his article could be wrong.
The 2020 story in The Atlantic also claimed that on Memorial Day 2017, Trump told Kelly in Arlington National Cemetery, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” Kelly declined to comment for the story at the time, and The Atlantic instead relied on an anonymous friend of Kelly’s. While it sure sounds like Kelly believes the stories about Trump, nothing in Tapper’s story suggests that Kelly explicitly confirmed the allegation.
Kelly first served as Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary, before becoming Trump’s chief of staff, in which capacity he continued to serve until January 2019. It’s hard to imagine that Kelly, who lost a son in Afghanistan, would have continued to serve in Trump’s administration had he actually witnessed Trump saying those things. Furthermore, if Kelly really did witness Trump making these statements, he needs to say so unambiguously. Otherwise, there’s no reason to believe Tapper’s story.
And the real question I have is: would these old allegations even be rehashed right now if Trump weren’t beating Biden in the polls?
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