Donald Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff John Kelly confirmed Monday that the former president made several derogatory comments in private mocking American military members and veterans.
“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly, who previously served as Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, said in a statement provided to CNN’s Jake Tapper. “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.”
In his written statement, Kelly confirmed several explosive allegations included in a September 2020 article by Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, including that Trump turned to Kelly during a Memorial Day celebration at Arlington National Cemetery in 2017 and said, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” The article also alleged that Trump privately called former Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.), who he publicly mocked on the campaign trail in 2016 for being captured during the Vietnam War, a “loser,” a term he also reportedly applied to George H.W. Bush, who was also shot down while serving as a pilot in World War II.
“We’re not going to support that loser’s funeral,” Trump reportedly told aides. “What the f*** are we doing that for? Guy was a f***ing loser.”
According to the story, Trump also ditched plans to visit the graves of Americans killed in World War I at the Aisne-Marne cemetery outside of Paris in 2018, publicly citing technical difficulties with transportation, though later confiding to a staffer: “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.”
Kelly also confirmed that Trump told him he did not want wounded soldiers in a military parade the former president was planning at the time, a detail first reported by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in their book The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021.
“Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade,” Trump said.
“Those are the heroes,” Kelly said. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are – and they are buried over in Arlington.”
“I don’t want them,” Trump responded. “It doesn’t look good for me.”
Kelly condemned Trump for failing to understand the essence of America. Trump is 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,” the former chief of staff concluded. “God help us.”