Former White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly has confirmed that former President Donald Trump made distasteful comments during his administration, including calling soldiers who died for America “losers.”
Mr. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general and the longest-serving chief of staff for Mr. Trump, confirmed to CNN in a statement that certain details that were published in an article written by The Atlantic in 2020 are true.
“What can I add that has not already been said?” Mr. Kelly said about Mr. Trump in a statement to CNN. “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 spokesperson for Mr. Trump told The Washington Times that John Kelly “has totally clowned himself with these debunked stories he’s made up because he didn’t serve his President well while working as Chief of Staff.”
The Atlantic article described Mr. Trump canceling his trip to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018 due to rain, saying that he couldn’t take a helicopter and the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him, but they reported that neither claim was true. Staffers had told the news outlet that Mr. Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”
During the same trip, the former president referred to the more than 1,800 Marines who died at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed, according to staffers.
The White House and Mr. Trump quickly denied the report at the time, with Mr. Trump adding that he had done more for the military budgets “than almost anybody.”
Mr. Kelly also called out his former boss for not being truthful about his stance 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,” he continued. “A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served in 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,” Mr. Kelly concluded. “God help us.”
This comes after Mr. Trump attacked the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, on Truth Social, saying he committed a “treasonous act” by reaching out to his Chinese counterparts. The former president said that “death” would have been the punishment for Gen. Milley in other times.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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