Instead pf apologizing to a Gold Star family mourning the loss of a husband, father and son for Donald Trump’s insensitive condolence call, his Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired general and a Gold Star parent himself, disgraced not only himself in a White House press conference but further insulted the family, a congress woman whom he does not know and his own son’s memory. He used his son’s death to excuse the unsympathetic word’s of Donald Trump to the grieving wife of the dead soldier and then he disgracefully used the deaths of thousands of others with his recount of his walk through Arlington National Cemetery to cover for Trump’s lack of empathy.
Charlie Pierce said this is how Trump is always absolved
There’s always somebody willing to step up and push their soul to the middle of the table for him to gamble with and, when he loses, because he always loses at the game of being human, he reneges on the bet because that’s what he always does. Of all the “generals,” Kelly always was the one closest to being a true Trumpian; his tenure at Homeland Security overseeing ICE showed that Kelly at least was sympatico with the president*’s Id-driven hardbar approach to immigration.
And now, by deploying the memory of his son, he’s given his inexcusable boss that boss’s most recent alibi for that boss’s most recent offense against human decency and the dignity of his office. There’s a great sadness in that.
Not finished Kelly, then, attacked a congresswoman, a woman of color, for listening to the phone conversation that took place in a liimosine on the way to the airport to meet the plane carrying the soldier’s coffin, calling it a “private call.” Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) is a close family friend of Army Sgt. La David Johnson and the call was on speaker phone. Nor was this call private, Kelly and others were listening to Trump. He continued with his insults by calling her an “empty barrel” after her speech in 2015 at the dedication of Florida’s FBI headquarters incorrectly claiming she took credit for the building funding. Rep. Wilson was responsible for naming the building after two FBI agents slain in Miami in 1986.