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Video: Gen. Kelly on Trump’s Call to Grieving Family
Gen. John Kelly, a gold star parent himself, addressed the controversy raised by Rep. Frederica Wilson’s (D–FL) allegation that President Trump was disrespectful in his phone call to the family of a fallen soldier.
Video: Gut-wrenching stuff as Gen. Kelly describes his emotions upon seeing Democratic Rep. Wilson parading around blasting Trump pic.twitter.com/1quiR8ta0R
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 19, 2017
Rep. Wilson shabbily responded with, “John Kelly’s trying to keep his job. He will say anything. There were other people who heard what I heard.”
What do you think about this latest controversy the media has been ginning up? Is Trump wrong? Is Wilson?
Published in Military
In my experience, most people aren’t eloquent, and Trump talks more like ordinary people than like a politician. I’m not a Trump fan (it’s still hard for me when people ask me accusingly: ‘are you a supporter?’ because I don’t think I am, but neither am I an opponent) however there are some things I quite like about Trump, and his unwillingness to talk like a politician/PR-rep/lawyer is one of them. I wish he could manage to do this without being so impolite, but then some people tell me that’s a New Yorker thing. Maybe. Not predisposed to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.
I wish we could all just agree that he’s rude and crude and full of bluster. You’d think that’d be a point for the left. Instead they want to claim he’s hateful and a liar.
I don’t think of him as a liar, at least not in the usual sense, like Nixon with Watergate or Hillary with Benghazi. He’s less than honest, but more like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar saying ‘not me’ or a used car salesman who’s trying to tell you that the I don’t perceive him as hateful. Insensitive, yes. Combative, yes Certainly incapable of subtlety and nuance (like his criticisms of antifa violence at Charlottesvile), but the left finds it necessary to overreach and say he’s endorsing bigotry. I think that’s exactly what happened here: he tried to say something that should be said, muffed the attempt, and is being called a monster.
Don’t go soft on me George. Trump blew up the last scraps of dignity clinging to the office and politics and nearly everyone on the Right cheered him on. He is the great disruptor. What now we lament the loss of dignity and sacredness? Give me a break. I guess as vile NeverTrumpers have been lamenting this for quite some time. We lamented it when Democrats tore down our standards of decency and when Republicans did it. This though is the world we live in now. The world that the voters chose. They chose it when they nominated Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and then handing one of them the presidency. Oh well.
We have chosen to let go of all restraints ourselves because that is what we thought we needed to do to win. Meet them at their own level. Well now we’ve met them. At their level, how do we get back to where we were?
I think this was all a setup by Congresswoman Frederica …. so does Bill O’Reilly:
You don’t go back, you go through — like the Marines did to the Japanese in WWII in the island campaigns. It is ugly, but when we are victorious, and only then, can we embrace civility again. Any embrace of civility at this point is only exploited by the Left.
Another family released a video of their call with Trump.
I can’t find a link, I watched on the iPhone news app, but you simply cannot listen to that call and believe what they are saying about the other call.
It can be listened to here.
Ha! You assume you will remember what civility was. This is sort of like fighting alcoholism by getting blind drunk in the hopes that once you have drunk all the liqueur you will sober up and stay that way. I don’t buy it.
Yes all a conspiracy, clearly. I mean if Bill O’Rielly says so. Know comforter of women. Is it possible that Trump sounded like a jerk to them without meaning to, because he is a natural jerk? Nope conspiracy.
But, whatever. Nothing stopped Trump from spreading lies and insulting people. Why should I spare an ounce of outrage on this? Trump is a liar this congresswoman is a liar. Heck Kelly is probably a liar too, he just has more moral cache to hide behind. Which I guess makes him an effective liar. Are we not entertained? I certainly am. This is was burning the system down looks like. Revel in it. Dance with exuberance, like Khali.
At one time, yes, but probably not now.
What I believe I’ve always done, am doing now, and will do for as long as God allows me to take breath, is to cry out to have people treated fairly. I still maintain that Donald Trump is not a fit man to be President. But he is there. Probably for 3-and-a-half more years at the least. I love my country, and always will. How Donald Trump feels in his heart is for a greater power to judge than me. I do judge his actions, though, and I see a man, in a situation like this, who is struggling to do the right thing. He will always look to himself first. I think that’s a given. But to say that the man is uncaring of the men and women who fight on behalf of our land is grossly unfair. And much of the press needs to be admonished for being excessively cruel to a man who has committed the greatest “sin” in their eyes: Not being a Democrat!
Well, OK then.
I agree with Valiuth on this. I don’t really understand some of the Trump supporters. Maybe some of them believe that the left is so bad that we have no choice but to fight incivility with more incivility, and then, once the fight is won, they believe, we can go back to civility. But this a dream. As the saying goes, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. What Donald Trump has given us we are gonna have to learn to live with.
I only argue the way I do because he is The President. There is nothing I can do to change that. So civility requires, in my reckoning, that we try to bring as much of a sense of fair play as we can muster to the situation.
I can see both sides, but I tend to agree with George. The parts of our civilization that Kelly laments simply are not coming back, including having respectable Presidents. We are on a direct path to President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.
The thing is, I think many Trump supporters don’t want civility. They are unwilling to say that publicly, so they they are simply advocating incivility in response to the left.
I will say, Trump did not give us this. The Republican primary voters asked for this. This is what they want the Republican party to stand for. In that way, Gen Kelly is an anachronism, but probably one of the last.
We were a proud country once.
Oh God, I want to cry – or punch or wall! You might be right, A-Squared. I hope you are not. I have been arguing, since he won the Presidency, that, Yes, Donald Trump has done good things. There is no doubt of that. But civilization counts. Donald Trump isn’t losing it for us; that would be unfair; but he isn’t doing much not to hasten its decline either.
I merely acknowledge that the left, the media, and the Democrat party (but I repeat myself) has already shredded civility – they breached the nuclear threshold, if you will – meaning deterrence has failed.
The neutrals in this conflict don’t want civility either – if they did, there would be some sanction to the left (media and Democrats) for the breaches of civility that occur – the neutrals cannot be bothered.
So it is not that I don’t want civility (which hasn’t existed for decades) it is that I refuse to concede this weapon to the left anymore.
So, I’ll say it publicly – I don’t want civility with the left. I don’t need it. I am at the point where I prefer to follow what I was taught as a young Lt. You negotiate with the enemy with your knee on his chest and your knife at his throat.
Nothing wrong with that. All I’m saying is that you should acknowledge that you don’t want civility anywhere in society. As you say, it’s gone, so let’s not lament its loss as Kelly does in the video.
I think the Republican should stop pretending that they care about many things they obviously don’t care about, including family values and monogamy. I think Trump’s nomination put that silly notion to bed. The party should acknowledge that they only care about naked power and getting more of the spoils for “us”, and they nominated the guy who promised to deliver more of the spoils to “us”.
I would probably have more respect for the party if they came clean.
One can lament the fact that he had to use a Smith & Wesson while at the same time knowing he has no choices other than being a victim, and maybe a dead victim, or using extreme violence in self-defense. It’s called living in the real world.
Many Trump voters, I believe, see the struggle with the “left, the media, and the Democrat party” in the same way. They know that civility is over for now and lament it, but hope it can be recovered eventually. They also know they weren’t the first to abandon civility.
BTW, of the 17 initial candidates, Trump was my 14th choice, so I have no dog in this fight.
Let’s be clear — the Trumpers did not start this. (I was an “anybody but Hillary” Trump voter. I continue to believe that Trumpism is not about Trump — it is about doing as much as can be done with politicians with (R)’s behind their names to reverse our nation’s drift into tyranny. Trump will not do everything I want him to do. No president has, even the sainted Ronald Reagan. I understand compromise and expediency.)
What “this” is is scorched earth political warfare. We are in a binary state although too many do not seem to understand that. What there is is the Hard Left and the Not Left. Anything outside the Hard Left’s lines is a free fire zone for them. Ask Red Pill Black, Milo, Peter Theil, Camille Paglia, and Alan Dershowitz. These are not individuals who most would associate with the conservative movement — but they are individuals. Thus they are targets of the Hard Left. They understand that the Hard Left have made things binary and unless the Not Left gets their act together we will continue to be dragged toward tyranny.
Civility in this context is only seen as weakness and cause for amplified attacks. The toothpaste is not just out of the tube, the Hard Left has exploded the tube. You can pretend that the tube is still there. You can pretend that “reasonable minds…etc.” still works. But it does not until the Hard Left is made impotent again. Trump is a weapon for the Not Left. If we do not use him or if we let the Hard Left triumph over him, they will be enormously strengthened and we will be terribly weakened.
Take the Red Pill, and do the difficult work to defeat the Hard Left.
Whoa – it isn’t about what I “want”. I want lots of things – at the moment good Scotch, a day off, Hugs and kisses from my kids, quality time with my wife, “Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”
The first part comes true in almost 2 months, the middle is done daily, and the end will have to wait for the second coming.
Haven’t seen them reject monogamy yet either.
If anyone questions whether we are in a pitched battle here are two stories that should illustrate the extent of the conflict:
THE FUSION COLLUSION
Video Backs Wilson, Not Kelly
The latter was sent by a Never Trumper friend. As is stated variously “Truth is the first casualty of war.” You know you are in a war when confusion is wielded as a weapon.
This is where we’re profoundly on different sides. Do you think Republicans have been treated “fairly” for the last few decades? How about the last eight years? You think Trump is getting a fair shake from the media?
I’ll put this as gently as I’m able…. nope, I can’t think of a way.
The Left has been weaponizing their own vile corruption and bigotry — greed, lies, race-obsessed, identity hustling, envy poisoning — for as long as I can remember. And “nice-guy” Republicans have let it slide.
People who earn their way, and take care of their families, who take pride in the founding, and who generally try to contribute to the common good are sick to death of being berated and scolded by the likes of community organizers and grievance mongers (but, I repeat). Trump doesn’t take it lying down. He likes us. He really, really likes us!
When you parrot the outrage machine, you’ve displayed to me that you buy the Left’s premises about your fellow Americans. You’re worse than useless in the fight against the Left. You’re an obstacle we have to get around to get to the front lines.
Here’s my little paean to Trump. He’s got courage. He won’t be cowed. He could have continued his cushy life in Manhattan, but he’s sacrificing (yes — self-sacrificing) for the good of the country. And, yes, I’m convinced he’s the only Republican who could have defeated Hillary. I’m grateful.
He’s brusque. Get over it. It’s a package deal.
It’s also historically false that we’ve not experienced this type of incivility before (and seems rather ignorant of human nature). You think Andrew Jackson had a crisp crease in his pants and a smooth delivery? I doubt it. Ever read what Adams and Jefferson (particularly Jefferson) said about each other? The calumnies they perpetrated?
Please. Trump is an exaggerator, for sure, but his overstatements tend to be about unimportant things that have no effect on our daily lives, whereas what he’s doing is almost entirely beneficial to us.
That’s the truth. Handle it.
Whether you mean to or not, you insult me. And I say, how dare you! Nowhere, on this thread, or any threat, have I ever said anything that parrots the left. You have every right as an American to think I am useless. Don’t expect me to be happy about it, or to accept your display of ignorance about what I’ve actually written to come from a good place. I will, as a matter of fact, parrot something that Trump likes to write: This is very sad. And so are you. Please don’t bother writing on anything again that I have anything to do with?!
ACLU shouted down at William and Mary
No parroting?
You don’t recover civility by abandoning it. All I’m saying is people who want to abandon civility should acknowledge they don’t want it to come back if they are willing to abandon it.
I agree it is probably gone, I agree the left started it, where I disagree is that people who are eager to abandon civility actually want it back.
They nominated Trump.
I am giving them the benefit of whatever doubt there may be. I can’t know whether they actually want it back. That may be our only point of disagreement. And if that were not depressing enough to contemplate, here is Whittaker Chambers’ comment from decades ago:
“It is idle to talk about preventing the wreck of western civilization. It is already a wreck from within. That is why we can hope to do little more now than snatch a fingernail of a saint from the rack or a handful of ashes from the faggots, and bury it secretly in some flowerpot against the day, ages hence, when a few men begin again to dare to believe that there was once something else, that something else is thinkable, and need some evidence of what it was, and the fortifying knowledge that there were those who, at the great nightfall, took loving thought to preserve the tokens of love and truth.”
You took it personally when it wasn’t intended. You may have not parroted the outrage machine, but I’m not allowed to use “Never Trump” to categorize the “you” I intended, so I left it generic.
However, I’m happy to oblige you, personally. This is the last you’ll hear from me.
This makes no sense. Are you trying to tell me that civility doesn’t grow as trust is built? That it was always there, from the start of creation until President Reagan was elected?
I think civility ebbs and flows as conflict waxes and wanes. You just happen to be observing as conflict is waxing. So yes, we can recover civility by abandoning it, you just have to go through the rest of the conflict first.
This isn’t ‘play’. If we were playing, then I agree that we should be civil.
The left hasn’t been playing for decades. In the last election, it seems, those of us on the right decided to stop ‘playing’.
Civility is a tool in the war against the left. Incivility is a tool as well. Civility would make reconciliation easier, when that day comes, but it is not necessary to be civil to win.
BTW George – please cease being uncivil to my friend, WC. It a war between you two, you lose.
As trust is built? When the conflict is over? When exactly will this conflict be over and when do you plan on engaging in building trust with the left? Forgive me for being skeptical that your goal is the return of civility.
And, no, civility was not there at the nation’s founding, nor is here at our demise.
The more I reflect on this conversation, the more I am reminded of the Great Course I’m listening to on the Peloponnesian War. We started out pursuing a tactical victory, but are now in the midst of an all-consuming war. We now think of the enemy as less than human and nothing is out of bounds in this war.
Since I believe 1) the real flight 93 election was 2012 and America lost and therefore 2) we as a nation are past the tipping point, I think this is inevitable.