Kelly defends Trump, speaks of son’s death
WASHINGTON — John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, delivered an emotional, personal defense of President Trump’s call this week to the widow of a slain soldier, describing the trauma of learning about his own son’s death in Afghanistan and calling the criticism of Trump’s call unfair.
Kelly said that he was stunned to see the criticism, which came from a Democratic congresswoman, Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida, after Trump delivered a similar message to the widow of one of the soldiers killed in Niger. Kelly said afterward he had to collect his thoughts by going to Arlington National Cemetery for more than an hour.
In a remarkable, somber appearance in the White House briefing room, Kelly, a retired Marine general whose son 2nd Lt. Robert Kelly was slain in battle in 2010, said he had told the president what he was told when he got the news.
“He was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed,” Kelly said. “He knew what he was getting into by joining that 1 percent. He knew what the possibilities were, because we were at war.
“I was stunned when I came to work yesterday, and brokenhearted, when I saw what a member of Congress was doing,” he said. “What she was saying, what she was doing on TV. The only thing I could do to collect my thoughts was to go walk among the finest men or women on this Earth.”
Kelly, who had long guarded his personal story of loss even as he served as a high-profile public official, broke that silence in dramatic fashion on Thursday. With no advance notice to reporters, Kelly offered poignant criticism of the news media and the broader society for failing to properly respect the fallen.
The appearance came after Trump and the White House were consumed by criticism after the president’s actions this week — first appearing to criticize former presidents for failing to call the families of fallen service members and later for the words Trump chose to use in speaking with the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson.
Kelly defended Trump by offering a detailed, even excruciating description of what happens to those killed in combat, including how the remains are packed in ice for the flights back to the United States. He testified to the deep pain that parents feel when they get an early-morning knock on the door from an official there to tell them that their son or daughter has been killed in action.
“The casualty officer proceeds to break the heart of a family member,” Kelly said, his eyes reddening as he spoke.
He said that presidents often are not among those who call family members directly, and he confirmed what Trump had alluded to publicly this week: that former President Barack Obama had not called him after Robert Kelly was killed.
“That was not a criticism, that was simply to say I don’t believe President Obama called,” Kelly said, adding that President George W. Bush and other presidents did not always make personal phone calls to family members. Michael D. Shear is a New York Times writer.