https://www.yahoo.com/news/john-kelly-repeatedly-referred-trump-223929428.html
John Kelly Has Repeatedly Referred To Trump As An ‘Idiot,’ NBC Reports
Dominique Mosbergen
,
HuffPost•April 30, 2018
White House chief of staff John Kelly has disparaged President Donald Trump's intelligence on several occasions, according to NBC News. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Four of the officials said they’d personally witnessed Kelly using the disparaging term to describe Trump.
Related SearchesJohn KellyMegyn Kelly Fired From NBCJohn Kelly Facepalm
“He doesn’t even understand what DACA is. He’s an idiot,” Kelly allegedly said during a meeting about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and overall immigration policy. “We’ve got to save him from himself.”
“I spend more time with the President than anyone else and we have an incredibly candid and strong relationship,” he said in a statement. “He always knows where I stand and he and I both know this story is total BS. I am committed to the President, his agenda, and our country. This is another pathetic attempt to smear people close to President Trump and distract from the administration’s many successes.”
NBC’s unnamed sources told the network that Kelly was known to “make fun” more generally at what the chief of staff saw as the president’s “lack of knowledge about policy and government.”
They said Kelly has also painted himself as being the person responsible for shielding the country from Trump’s more erratic impulses.
“The strong implication being, ‘If I weren’t here we would’ve entered WWIII or the president would have been impeached,’” NBC reported that one senior White House official said of Kelly’s attitude.
Officials told NBC that Kelly questioned aloud why Porter’s alleged victims “wouldn’t just move on.”
Some of the officials quoted in the NBC story suggested that Kelly may resign this summer as tensions mount between him and Trump.
But several White House spokespeople pushed back against the suggestion that the president and Kelly had anything less than a good working relationship and refuted the suggestion that Kelly had referred to Trump as an “idiot.”
These officials told NBC that Kelly is in the Oval Office “more than anyone else.” They conceded, however, that Trump does get “frustrated” with the chief of staff at times.
Stephanie Ruhle, one of the reporters behind the NBC article, defended the veracity of the story’s contents on Monday, telling Kelly in a tweet that it was people “on your team” who recounted stories of “you (not us) undermining [the president’s] credibility.”
John Kelly Has Repeatedly Referred To Trump As An ‘Idiot,’ NBC Reports
Dominique Mosbergen
,
HuffPost•April 30, 2018
White House chief of staff John Kelly has disparaged President Donald Trump's intelligence on several occasions, according to NBC News. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Four of the officials said they’d personally witnessed Kelly using the disparaging term to describe Trump.
Related SearchesJohn KellyMegyn Kelly Fired From NBCJohn Kelly Facepalm
“He doesn’t even understand what DACA is. He’s an idiot,” Kelly allegedly said during a meeting about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and overall immigration policy. “We’ve got to save him from himself.”
“I spend more time with the President than anyone else and we have an incredibly candid and strong relationship,” he said in a statement. “He always knows where I stand and he and I both know this story is total BS. I am committed to the President, his agenda, and our country. This is another pathetic attempt to smear people close to President Trump and distract from the administration’s many successes.”
NBC’s unnamed sources told the network that Kelly was known to “make fun” more generally at what the chief of staff saw as the president’s “lack of knowledge about policy and government.”
They said Kelly has also painted himself as being the person responsible for shielding the country from Trump’s more erratic impulses.
“The strong implication being, ‘If I weren’t here we would’ve entered WWIII or the president would have been impeached,’” NBC reported that one senior White House official said of Kelly’s attitude.
Officials told NBC that Kelly questioned aloud why Porter’s alleged victims “wouldn’t just move on.”
Some of the officials quoted in the NBC story suggested that Kelly may resign this summer as tensions mount between him and Trump.
But several White House spokespeople pushed back against the suggestion that the president and Kelly had anything less than a good working relationship and refuted the suggestion that Kelly had referred to Trump as an “idiot.”
These officials told NBC that Kelly is in the Oval Office “more than anyone else.” They conceded, however, that Trump does get “frustrated” with the chief of staff at times.
Stephanie Ruhle, one of the reporters behind the NBC article, defended the veracity of the story’s contents on Monday, telling Kelly in a tweet that it was people “on your team” who recounted stories of “you (not us) undermining [the president’s] credibility.”
- This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
