Is General John Kelly Becoming Mini-Me? – Gen. Kelly fails to take Trump Administration mainstream or make Trump more presidential. Meanwhile, Kelly is making an increasing number of divisive statements and gaffes. Kelly is becoming more like Trump, not the reverse. The White House Staff is in turmoil again. Where is the old Gen. Kelly?
CNN, 8 February 2018, John Kelly’s latest blunder is protecting an accused abuser
Extract: White House chief of staff John Kelly’s role in — and the mayhem unleashed by — Rob Porter’s domestic abuse allegations is just the latest episode in a growing record of politically incorrect behavior by the decorated former general turned hardline West Wing fixer.
Kelly was initially credited with bringing military-style rigor to the pandemonium that raged in the Trump White House when he took the job last July.
It’s possible that Trump has changed Kelly more than Kelly has changed Trump, and he is now showing sides of the ex-Marine’s character that were for years hidden behind a cloak of military discipline.
Furthermore, Kelly’s recent remarks on racial and cultural issues and his willingness to embrace Trump’s uncompromising rhetoric and policy on immigration show him to be far more in tune with the populist, nationalist Trump philosophy than was initially assumed.
Then, when the controversy exploded this week, Kelly’s reaction came across as jarring and insufficient, especially at a time when American political and public life is being reshaped by revelations of abuse and sexual harassment.
The administration was left looking clumsy and out of touch, oblivious to the changed political climate and keen to cover up for one of their own, a state of affairs that naturally put Kelly, who is in charge of White House staff, under fire.
The disconnect and scrambling at the top of the administration was reflected in two statements released by Kelly on Wednesday. In the first, drafted with the help of White House communications director Hope Hicks, who is in a relationship with Porter, Kelly poured praise on his right-hand man. For more, please see the hyperlink below:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/08/politics/john-kelly-white-house-pressure/index.html
NBC, 9 February 2018, Ned Price John Kelly’s response to Rob Porter proves he’s not the hero Americans hoped he would be: For far too long we gave Kelly the benefit of the doubt. But his one-time proponents have now returned to our senses.
Extract: Like much of the country, I breathed a sigh of relief last year when President Donald Trump, in perhaps his most consequential personnel shake-up to date, named retired four-star Marine general John Kelly as his chief of staff.
I called him a man of “honor and decency.” I echoed that sentiment on TV, adding that I welcomed the order I expected he’d instill in Trump’s freewheeling policy process, especially within the national security realm. I soon came to realize I was wrong on both fronts. Nothing highlights this better than Kelly’s initial defense of Rob Porter, the outgoing White House staff secretary accused of spousal abuse.
We gave Kelly the benefit of the doubt. Kelly couldn’t be blamed for the disastrous response to Charlottesville, we reasoned, because he was new to the job and, in any case, those were Trump’s extemporaneous remarks. Kelly, we hoped in vain, was signaling to the world his displeasure with the inclusion of “Little Rocket Man” in Trump’s United Nations address by burying his head in his hands. For too long, policy or personnel missteps were seen to have occurred in spite of Kelly, not because of him.
That’s no longer the case, of course, and Kelly’s baseless — and perhaps worse — attacks against Congressman Fredericka Wilson in 2017 brought that into stark relief long before the indignities of more recent days. Nothing this week better illustrates what Kelly has become, however, than the statement he issued late Wednesday night about Porter. For more, please see the hyperlink below:
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/john-kelly-s-response-rob-porter-proves-he-s-not-ncna846296
The Atlantic, 7 February 2018, The Rise and Fall of John Kelly’s Reputation: The White House chief of staff is facing new scrutiny for his defense of a staffer who has resigned following accusations of physical abuse from two ex-wives.
Extract: There’s only ever really one story arc in Washington. A new face arrives in town, impresses people, and reaches dizzying new heights. Before too long, however, the capital becomes disillusioned and turns on him (or occasionally her).
That’s the story of Rob Porter, the White House staff secretary, who announced his departure on Wednesday after published allegations of abuse from his two ex-wives. And more broadly, it’s also the story of John Kelly, the White House chief of staff who was Porter’s boss and defender.
He controlled the flow of information to Trump and spent a great deal of time with him. “Porter had good relationships across the ideological spectrum of the White House—from Stephen Miller to Gary Cohn, was one of Kelly’s most trusted aides, and was in charge of the weekly trade policy meetings,” Jonathan Swan reports.
According to two ex-wives, Porter was also abusive. The women gave interviews to the Daily Mail describing both physical abuse, including punching and choking, and verbal abuse. On Tuesday, the White House staunchly defended Porter. Kelly called Porter “a man of true integrity and honor.”
Porter’s story also brings fresh scrutiny to Kelly, who was promoted from secretary of Homeland Security to White House chief of staff last summer. In addition to Kelly’s surprisingly unequivocal statement on Tuesday, Axios reports that Kelly was among White House officials urging Porter, in an unfortunate turn of phrase, “to stay and fight” rather than resign.
A senior administration official also told Politico that Kelly was aware of a 2010 protective order against Porter.
In fact, Porter had reportedly not received permanent security clearance because of the order, which is notable because his job was to handle all documents that went to Trump, which included a great deal of classified material.
Kelly is the same man who, during an emotional briefing in October, fumed that when he was young, “Women were sacred and looked upon with great honor. That’s obviously not the case anymore as we’ve seen from recent cases.”
The chief of staff, rejecting calls for the White House to extend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, said that “Dreamers” should have registered during the Obama administration, and those who did not were “too lazy to get off their asses.”
In October, Trump was slow to speak about the deaths of U.S. soldiers in Niger, only delivered condolences in a delayed fashion, and then inexplicably got into a feud with the widow of one soldier. Kelly came out and staunchly defended Trump. In the process, he escalated a feud with Representative Frederica Wilson of Florida, a black woman, telling an anecdote that portrayed her in a negative light and calling her an “empty barrel.”
Kelly also defended Robert E. Lee, who led a treasonous armed revolt against the United States, as an “honorable man.”
Kelly has brought new discipline to the West Wing, but he has not moderated Trump’s behavior. While that is in part, as Kelly takes pains to point out, because his job is to manage for the president, not to manage the president, it is also because Kelly seems to be on the same page as Trump on most issues. For more, please see the hyperlink below:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/john-kelly-rob-porter/552704/
Esquire, 6 February 2018, Let’s Check in With Moderate Influence John Kelly: The good general is hard at work
Extract: Kelly went into a lengthy and vigorous defense of the Trump administration’s broad framework of what it would like to see in a Dreamers deal. Kelly called the plan “generous,” particularly the provisions that expanded the universe of Dreamers eligible for a pathway to citizenship from the estimated 690,000 current DACA recipients to 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants who came here as minors. That expansion covers immigrants who some say “were too afraid to sign up, others would say were too lazy to get off their asses” to register for the program, Kelly said. For more, please see the hyperlink below:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a16639508/john-kelly-daca/
The Nation, 8 February 2018, John Kelly Has Got to Go: His awful response to domestic-abuse charges involving a top aide is just the latest in a series of toxic blunders.
Extract: With his scorchingly dishonest and demeaning attacks on one of the most honorable members of the House, Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, to his deliberately ignorant claim that a “lack of appreciation of history” inspired efforts to remove monuments honoring the Confederacy, to his ahistorical suggestion that “the lack of an ability to compromise” led to the Civil War, to his efforts (with alt-right favorite Stephen Miller) to derail negotiations on immigration reform, to his recent claim that many Dreamers were “too lazy” to apply for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Kelly has accomplished something remarkable. Kelly has managed to distract attention from Trump’s own erratic, un-Presidential behavior. For more, please see the hyperlink:
https://www.thenation.com/article/john-kelly-has-got-to-go/
Patheos, 23 January 2018, Kelly on His Way Out as Chief of Staff?
Extract: It seems that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s statement to members of Congress that Donald Trump’s views on the border wall during the campaign were “uninformed” has gotten him in some hot water with his boss. For more, please see the hyperlink below:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatches/2018/01/23/kelly-way-chief-staff/
Fox, 31 January 2018, John Kelly says anti-military teacher should ‘go to hell,’ vows swift memo release in interview
Extract: White House chief of staff John Kelly, in a wide-ranging interview with Fox News Radio, said the California teacher who has made headlines for bashing the military in a profane classroom rant should “go to hell.” For more, please see the hyperlink below:
New York Magazine, 31 October 2017, John Kelly Is As Deluded About the Confederacy As Donald Trump Is
Extract: For all of the talk of Mr. Kelly as a moderating force and the so-called grown-up in the room, it turns out that he harbors strong feelings on patriotism, national security and immigration that mirror the hard-line views of his outspoken boss. With his attack on a congresswoman who had criticized Mr. Trump’s condolence call to a slain soldier’s widow last week, Mr. Kelly showed that he was willing to escalate a politically distracting, racially charged public fight even with false assertions.
And that was before Kelly unburdened himself of some depressingly retrograde views on a bit of U.S. history that is, unfortunately, still highly relevant today:
The White House chief of staff called [Robert E.] Lee “an honorable man” who chose duty to his state over loyalty to a federal government.
“It was always loyalty to state first back in those days,” Kelly said. “Now, it’s different today.”
He continued: “But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War. And men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had to make their stand,” Kelly added, not making any mention of slavery.
Kelly’s miseducation might not matter that much were it not for the fact that the Confederate legacy has become a live political issue — for example, as the subject of intensive messaging by the Republican Party’s candidate for governor of Virginia. How is Kelly supposed to curb his boss’s claim that “the history and culture of our great country [are] being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments,” when local communities are also trying to remove vestiges of neo-Confederate propaganda? Kelly feels the same way Trump does, evidently. For more, please see the hyperlink:
John Kelly’s series of controversial comments
KXLF, 8 February 2018, John Kelly’s latest blunder is protecting an accused abuser
Extract: White House chief of staff John Kelly’s role in — and the mayhem unleashed by — Rob Porter’s domestic abuse allegations is just the latest episode in a growing record of politically incorrect behavior by the decorated former general turned hardline West Wing fixer.
Kelly was initially credited with bringing military-style rigor to the pandemonium that raged in the Trump White House when he took the job last July.
Kelly is now under scrutiny because sources say senior aides knew for months about the allegations, did not address them and in fact actively promoted Porter, who became a key figure in the White House before he resigned over the allegations, while protesting they did not tell the whole story.
The administration was left looking clumsy and out of touch, oblivious to the changed political climate and keen to cover up for one of their own, a state of affairs that naturally put Kelly, who is in charge of White House staff, under fire.
“If John Kelly is covering this up, he needs to be held accountable,” Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, told CNN’s “New Day,” on Thursday. He added: “He better have a really good reason. Otherwise, he’s gone, too.”
In the first statement on Porter, drafted with the help of White House communications director Hope Hicks, who is in a relationship with Porter, Kelly poured praise on his right-hand man.
“Rob Porter is a man of true integrity and honor and I can’t say enough good things about him. He is a friend, a confidante and a trusted professional. I am proud to serve alongside him,” the statement from Kelly read.
Later, with the crisis building by the hour and with the White House hurriedly saying that Porter would now swiftly leave the administration and not stay on for a transition period, Kelly issued a new statement, that was still seen by many critics as falling well short of what was appropriate.
“There is no place for domestic violence in our society. I stand by my previous comments of the Rob Porter that I have come to know since becoming Chief of Staff, and believe every individual deserves the right to defend their reputation,” Kelly said.
It was not the first time this week that Kelly had attracted condemnation. His comments that some undocumented immigrants were too “afraid” or “lazy” to sign up for protection under the Deferred Action on Child Arrivals (DACA) program was assailed by critics as racist.
“I’ll also say this old axiom: The command takes on the personality of the commander,” the retired general said. “It appears Trump brings out the worst in a lot of people.”
http://www.kxlf.com/story/37460466/john-kellys-latest-blunder-is-protecting-an-accused-abuser
WTHI-TV, 9 February 2018, When John Kelly arrived, he was credited with bringing discipline to the White House. But lately, some of his statements have attracted unwanted attention
Extract: Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s chief budget officer, is in the spotlight this week as staffers consider what might happen if White House chief of staff John Kelly leaves in the wake of the Rob Porter scandal.
Conversations have been going on all week long among White House staffers as to what a “post-Kelly world looks like,” a source familiar with these discussions said. And “the conversation keeps coming back to Mulvaney.”
Trump also has been quizzing those around him about their opinion of Mulvaney in recent weeks, aides and associates tell CNN.
http://www.wthitv.com/content/national/473605813.html?ref=813
Foreign Policy & Domestic Politics 