The White House struck back at Trump’s former White House chief of staff after he said that it was Mick Mulvaney’s fault that he was looking at impeachment.
.@PressSec responds to Kelly:
— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) October 26, 2019
“I worked with John Kelly, and he was totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President.”
Wow. So what were they responding to? John Kelly just said to the Washington Examiner that he could have kept Trump from doing the things that led to the impeachment inquiry.
Kelly, 69, said he privately cautioned Trump during his final days on the job that he would be impeached if he did not tap a chief of staff with the fortitude to check the president’s bad impulses. Kelly said he does not believe the president would be in this predicament had he stayed.
“I said, whatever you do — and we were still in the process of trying to find someone to take my place — I said whatever you do, don’t hire a ‘yes man,’ someone who won’t tell you the truth — don’t do that. Because if you do, I believe you will be impeached,” Kelly recalled in an interview at the Sea Island Summit, a political conference hosted by the Washington Examiner.
“That was almost 11 months ago, and I have an awful lot of, to say the least, second thoughts about leaving,” Kelly said. “It pains me to see what’s going on because I believe if I was still there or someone like me was there, he would not be kind of, all over the place.”
Of course, the implication here is that what Kelly warned is exactly what happened after he left. Now, Mulvaney didn’t seem like a “yes man,” but he is a very vociferous defender of the president’s policies. Even sometimes when he has to walk it back.
More from the Washington Examiner:
“Someone has got to be a guide that tells [the president] that you either have the authority or you don’t, or Mr. President, don’t do it,” Kelly said. “Don’t hire someone that will just nod and say, ‘That’s a great idea Mr. President.’ Because you will be impeached.”
Kelly added, “The system that should be in place, clearly — the system of advising, bringing in experts in, having these discussions with the president so he can make an informed decision, that clearly is not in place. And I feel bad that I left.”
On the one hand, it does seem like the Democrats were looking for ANY reason to impeach Trump, and maybe it wouldn’t have mattered if John Kelly had stayed on to protect Trump from himself. On the other hand, it does seem like Trump handed them the ammunition to attack his presidency. Even some Republicans are questioning his actions, which is why Trump is angrily tweeting about Nevertrump Republicans.
ON the other other third hand… if I were conspiracy minded, I might think that Kelly did this in order to elicit exactly the defensive response from the White House, in order to keep Mulvaney in his spot. Hmmmm.
Well that’s it for Saturday unless there’s breaking news. Hope you’re all having a great weekend! Have an open thread. I have only two comment fodder tweets for y’all.
My wife better be ready to put up with stuff like this 👻🎃 pic.twitter.com/mEP6YdcBv6
— pizza fern 🍕 (@_ferndawg) October 18, 2019
Very funny. She has what looks like a rosary on the windshield mirror, so she’s probably Catholic, which makes it even funnier.
https://twitter.com/Cory__1077/status/1187498856545574912Beautiful.