Trump aide Kelly gave views on service in ’15 FSU speech

TALLAHASSEE — John Kelly, President Donald Trump’s new chief of staff, gave a commencement speech to Florida State University graduates two years ago that touched on some of the issues he’ll be tackling in the White House, including immigration.

The main theme of the speech, delivered on May 2, 2015, was a call to selfless service of the country and a paean to American exceptionalism. But it also lends insight to Kelly’s views of the country and major issues of the day.

One of Kelly’s top priorities in pushing the Trump agenda is immigration. Trump announced Wednesday he will back a new Senate GOP bill that would cut legal immigration into the U.S. by half as a way of protecting American jobs and wages.

Two years ago, Kelly told FSU graduates that “we should welcome every immigrant to our shores” — provided they know what it means to be an American and are prepared to become one.

“It’s not about where you and your family came from but only why you came here and that you are eager to embrace America, its customs, its traditions, its way of life because you chose to come here to live, to thrive, to be an American; that you left your country for ours because you understood that life is better here in America than anywhere else on Earth; that we should welcome every immigrant to our shores whose only desires are for hope and opportunity; and they should know that the only price for happiness here is that they become an American — and all that that means.

“It does not mean — it does not mean — you have to stop being proud of who you were, but that you would be prouder of what you have become: an American. That it’s not about the god you worship, if you worship any god at all, but that you will respect the right of your neighbor to venerate any god he or she damn well pleases,” Kelly said.

Kelly briefly mentioned his son, Robert, who graduated from FSU in the 2000s and later died while serving in the Marines in Iraq in 2010.