Tag: John Kelly

Trump used Melania’s phone to circumvent John Kelly’s demand to listen to his calls: new book

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Among the bizarre factoids in Michael Bender’s new book, “Frankly, We Did Win This Election,” was the ways in which new President Donald Trump worked to circumvent all of the traditional rules and security barriers put in place.

One such rule was that then-chief of staff John Kelly listen in on all of Trump’s calls. Traditionally, calls are made through the White House system, but Trump apparently wasn’t about to do that. 

“When John Kelly, a retired, four-star Marine general whom Trump had recruited into his administration, invoked his chief of staff authority to listen in on any call that was patched through to the president from the West Wing switchboard, Trump gave friends the number to Melania’s phone to circumvent this official channel,” Bender wrote. Continue reading.

Phillips Presses Climate Envoy Kerry About Permitting for Transnational Pipelines

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WASHINGTON, DC—Today, Rep. Dean Phillips (MN-03) sent a letter to Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry asking the Biden Administration to clarify its policy regarding cross-border pipelines and to explain how the permitting process can mitigate the risks pipelines pose to tribal sovereignty and our natural environment.

After hearing from concerned Minnesotans about the Enbridge Line 3 Pipeline – a 50-year-old crude oil pipeline that stretches between Canada and Wisconsin – Phillips asked Kerry about necessary updates to the permitting process and where the administration stands on future pipeline infrastructure in a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last week. Kerry was unable to answer Rep. Phillips’s questions and encouraged future dialogue on the subject, dialogue that Phillips’s letter will begin.

“Tackling climate change and protecting our environment takes more than just one person, one corporation, or one country,” said Rep. Phillips. “We need a comprehensive, international response to this crisis to ensure the best future for our children and our children’s children. For our part, that means doing our due diligence to ensure that all pipeline projects, including Line 3, are reviewed for environmental risk. I look forward to hearing from Special Envoy Kerry about the administration’s approach to transnational pipelines – especially in light of President Biden’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2050.”

Continue reading “Phillips Presses Climate Envoy Kerry About Permitting for Transnational Pipelines”

John Kelly: I would vote to remove Trump

The former White House chief of staff also denounced members of the administration for not rejecting the president’s norms-shattering actions in recent years.

Former White House chief of staff John Kelly said on Thursday he would vote to remove President Donald Trump from office if he were still part of the administration.

Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Kelly said Cabinet members should meet to discuss the president’s role in the Capitol riots on Wednesday. When Tapper asked whether he would have voted to remove Trump, Kelly responded, “Yes, I would.”

Kelly has at times criticized the president since leaving the White House in 2019. But his interview on Thursday was the first time he openly endorsed the president’s removal. He also denounced members of the administration for not pushing back against Trump’s norms-shattering actions over the past two years, and said he wasn’t surprised by the president’s words egging on the storming of the Capitol. Continue reading.

John Kelly criticizes Trump over delay of Biden transition

“It’s about the nation,” Trump’s former chief of staff says in an interview with POLITICO. The wait “hurts our national security.”

President-elect Joe Biden should start receiving intelligence briefings, and the delay in allowing the transition to officially get started is damaging U.S. national security, President Donald Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly told POLITICO in an exclusive interview.

“You lose a lot if the transition is delayed because the new people are not allowed to get their head in the game,” Kelly said Friday. “The president, with all due respect, does not have to concede. But it’s about the nation. It hurts our national security because the people who should be getting [up to speed], it’s not a process where you go from zero to 1,000 miles per hour.”

“Mr. Trump doesn’t have to concede if he doesn’t want to, I guess, until the full election process is complete. But there’s nothing wrong with starting the transition, starting to get people like the national security people, obviously the president and the vice president-elect, if they are in fact elected, to start getting them [up to speed] on the intelligence,” he said. Continue reading.

Former White House chief of staff tells friends that

Former White House chief of staff, retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, has told friends that President Donald Trump “is the most flawed person” he’s ever known.

“The depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me. The dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship, though it’s more pathetic than anything else. He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life,” the retired Marine general has told friends, CNN has learned.

The reporting comes from a new CNN special scheduled to air Sunday night, “The Insiders: A Warning from Former Trump Officials,” in which former senior administration officials — including former national security adviser John Bolton, former Health and Human Services scientist Rick Bright and former Department of Homeland Security general counsel John Mitnick — explain why they think the President is unfit for office. Continue reading.

Former Trump chief of staff John Kelly says telling the president that things he wanted to do were illegal was like ‘French kissing a chainsaw’

The former White House chief of staff John Kelly has said that having to refuse President Donald Trump’s requests “was like ‘French kissing a chainsaw,'” according to a new book.

“Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President” by the New York Times correspondent Michael Schmidt is due to be released on Tuesday. The book’s synopsis describes it as the story of Trump “and the officials of his own government who tried to stop him.”

The chainsaw simile was included in an Axios report on the book. Continue reading.

‘He got nasty’: Former White House chief of staff rips Trump and defends James Mattis

AlterNet logoAfter resigning from his position as secretary of Defense in December 2018, Gen. James Mattis was reluctant to criticize President Donald Trump. But that changed this week during the George Floyd protests when Mattis, in comments published by The Atlantic, called Trump out for being so divisive.

As Mattis’s comments stoke both praise and backlash, former White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly came out on Thursday to defend the former Pentagon chief.

Mattis disagreed with Trump’s threat to use military force during the demonstrations. And he asserted: “Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us.” Continue reading.

Trump drags John Kelly’s wife into the fray as he rages at former chief of staff for not keeping ‘his mouth shut’

President Donald Trump attacked John Kelly — and bashed his wife — after the former White House chief of staff criticized his actions toward Ukraine.

Trump lashed out at the retired Marine Corps general for siding with Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified against the president in the impeachment inquiry.

“When I terminated John Kelly, which I couldn’t do fast enough, he knew full well that he was way over his head,” Trump tweeted. “Being Chief of Staff just wasn’t for him. He came in with a bang, went out with a whimper, but like so many X’s, he misses the action & just can’t keep his mouth shut, which he actually has a military and legal obligation to do.” Continue reading.

John Kelly just made these 4 incredible assertions about Trump — and it’s already getting under his skin

Three years after he was sworn in as president of the United States, one thing that is painfully obvious about Donald J. Trump is that he insists on having unquestioning loyalists in his administration and has zero tolerance for those who aren’t. That’s why Attorney General William Barr, White House Adviser Kellyanne Conway, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos are still in his good graces and why former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former Defense Secretary James Mattis are all gone. Another major departure from the Trump Administration was that of Marine Corps veteran John F. Kelly, who served as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) before becoming White House chief of staff in July 2017 and remaining in that position until early January 2019.

Like Bolton, Tillerson and Mattis, Kelly grew incredibly frustrated with Trump; nonetheless, Kelly mostly held his tongue after leaving the White House. But the retired Marine Corps general, during a 75-minute speech and Q&A session at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, New Jersey on Wednesday night, February 12, spoke candidly and frankly about Trump. And Kelly wasn’t shy about criticizing the president, who is angrily lashing out at him on Twitter.

The morning after Kelly’s Morristown appearance, Peter Nicholas covered the event in The Atlantic. Trump, on Twitter, boasted about firing Kelly and posted, “When I terminated John Kelly, which I couldn’t do fast enough, he knew full well that he was way over his head. Being Chief of Staff just wasn’t for him. He came in with a bang, went out with a whimper, but like so many X’s, he misses the action & just can’t keep his mouth shut, which he actually has a military and legal obligation to do.” Continue reading.

All the president’s disloyal men: Trump demands fealty but inspires very little

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President Trump’s personal lawyer called him “John the Backstabber.” A pro-Trump Fox News host described him as “a tool for the radical Democrats.” And the president himself dismissed John Bolton, his former national security adviser, as a disgruntled lackey trying “only to sell a book.”

The explosive disclosures in Bolton’s forthcoming memoir about his time in the White House — including his firsthand allegation that Trump directly tied the holdup of $391 million of military aid for Ukraine to investigations into a political rival — prompted cries of heresy and betrayal from Trump and his allies.

But the short gestation period — less than five months — between Bolton’s September exit from the administration to his damning book manuscript underscores an uncomfortable truth for Trump: For a president who demands absolute loyalty, he inspires strikingly little of the same, with former aides, advisers and associates turning on him with thrumming regularity.