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Trump's Media Stooges Slander John Kelly As 'Traitor' And 'Seditionist'

After former White House chief of staff John Kelly criticized Donald Trump, right-wing commentators linked to the former president have called Kelly a “traitor,” a “seditionist,” “compromised,” a “threat to America,” and treasonous.

In a trio of audio interviews with The New York Times, Kelly “said that, in his opinion, Mr. Trump met the definition of a fascist,” and “discussed and confirmed previous reports that Mr. Trump had made admiring statements about Hitler, had expressed contempt for disabled veterans and had characterized those who died on the battlefield for the United States as ‘losers’ and ‘suckers.’”

Reflecting the chaotic nature of the Trump White House, numerous former staffers have supported and bolstered Kelly’s warnings and recollections. Right-wing media figures, however, have dismissed, ignored, or cast doubt on his remarks.

They have also descended into retributive rhetoric, saying Kelly is a “traitor,” treasonous, and seditious. Such language echoes the words of Trump himself, who has promised to carry out a retribution tour if he’s elected president.

The following are several right-wing commentators who have connections with Trump who have lashed out at Kelly:

Sebastian Gorka is a radio host who pushes conspiracy theories and extreme rhetoric. He is a former Trump White House adviser. Gorka has interviewed and been praised by Trump.

During an interview with Salem Media Group colleague Mike Gallagher, Gorka said: “I've got a message for John Kelly. You're no Marine, John Kelly. You're a seditionist. You're a traitor. You tried to push me and Steve Bannon out.” He added: “I spit on his career because he is not a Marine and people like him are the threat to America.”

Peter Navarro is an election denier and Project 2025 author. He is also a Trump campaign surrogate who was recently released from prison, where he was serving a sentence for defying a congressional subpoena.

He wrote an opinion piece attacking Kelly with the headline “Trump’s four-star bully chief of staff John Kelly was a traitor within.”

Mike Flynn is a right-wing commentator who spreads conspiracy theories and toxic rhetoric. He is also a Trump ally and former national security adviser who left in disgrace. Trump told Flynn last year that Flynn would return to the White House if he wins. And CNN reported that “multiple foreign diplomats tell CNN they see Flynn as someone who will have influence if the former president retakes the White House and have privately speculated that he could be tapped for another high-level position if that comes to pass.”

He endorsed a post by conspiracy theorist Buzz Patterson that claimed: “Flag officers who perpetuate lies and fraud, like Kelly, Milley, Austin, Brennan, etc, have violated their oaths and, in some cases, the law. They are treasonous and, dare I say, the ‘enemy within.’ Yes, I said that.”

Flynn responded to Patterson: “What Buzz said!”

Tony Shaffer is a right-wing commentator and conspiracy theorist. He advised Trump and is part of his Veterans and Military Families for Trump coalition.

During an interview, Shaffer said of Kelly: “I think he's compromised. He was part of — I'll be very clear. He was compromised when he was chief of staff to Trump.” As evidence of him being compromised, Shaffer claimed that Kelly wouldn’t let him talk to the president about concerns over the FBI being corrupted. He added on social media that “people like John Kelly were the inside men of the whole effort to conduct a coup to remove President Trump.”

Right-Wing Media Once Lionized John Kelly For Restraining Trump

Prominent members of the right-wing media elite touted John Kelly’s ability as White House chief of staff to impose discipline on then-President Donald Trump and prevent the nation from falling into chaos.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board and commentators like National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry and Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich praised the retired four-star general as an “indispensable” and “unflinching” figure who “deserves the nation’s gratitude” for stopping Trump from exercising his worst impulses.

Now, Kelly is publicly describing the former president as a fascist bent on ruling the United States as a dictator if he returns to power — while Trump is making clear that he will not allow himself to be surrounded by similar figures who could act as guardrails in a second term — and the same figures are still backing his candidacy.

Elite right-wing commentators lauded Kelly for keeping Trump under control

For a segment of the right-wing press that likes Trump’s support for cutting taxes, banning abortion, dismantling the social safety net, and other traditional GOP positions — but dislikes the chaos he brings with them — Kelly’s July 2017 appointment as chief of staff was a godsend.

The conservative editorial board of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journalwrote at the time that Trump, not Kelly’s predecessor Reince Priebus, had been “the problem” at the White House and expressed faint hope that Kelly might be able to “impose some order on the staff” — if Trump listened to him.

Their hopes were apparently vindicated; when Trump announced in December 2018 that Kelly would be stepping down, the board showered him with praise in an editorial titled “Thank You, John Kelly.”

“There are many unpleasant jobs in the world, but somebody has to do them,” the piece began. “One is being Donald Trump’s chief of staff, and so as he prepares to be liberated from White House bondage this month, John Kelly deserves the nation’s gratitude.”

“He tried to establish order in the President’s schedule and meetings, to the extent that is possible, as well as a regular process for policy deliberations,” it continued. “Mr. Kelly did that well enough, and long enough, that the White House could negotiate tax reform.”

The board went on to bemoan the potential candidates to replace Kelly, noting, “Mr. Trump’s chaotic style is so outside management norms that we hesitate to suggest any names.”

Lowry was even more fulsome in his praise in a February 2018 piece for National Review headlined “John Kelly Shouldn’t Go Anywhere; In short, it is Kelly or bust.”

Lowry wrote that Kelly “is as close as it gets to an indispensable man in the Trump White House,” touting his ability to “intimidate the White House staff into a semblance of order.”

“Kelly has indeed been a restraining influence on Trump, even if that is difficult to believe,” he added. “Just imagine a White House with all those who have now mostly been locked out — Corey Lewandowski and Co.— back on the inside to do their utmost to create the chaos and self-valorizing leaking sufficient for Fire and Fury: The Sequel.”

(Lewandowski, who Trump fired from his 2016 campaign, officially joined the 2024 effort in September, though the notoriously dishonest and violent political operative seems to have subsequently lost influence within its ranks.)

And Gingrich, discussing potential Kelly replacements on Fox in December 2018, similarly stressed Kelly’s ability to keep Trump under control and tell him when his desires could not be met.

“He needs somebody strong enough to say no,” Gingrich said of the then-president. “This is a very strong-willed personality. He will run over a weaker person and they will rapidly lose control of the building.”

“Gen. Kelly was terrific because he is a four-star Marine and they are pretty tough, they are pretty unflinching,” Gingrich continued. “No chief of staff is going to dominate President Trump, but he needs a chief of staff strong enough to look him in the eye and say, ‘That's not a very good idea.’ And I hope he will pick somebody who is that strong.”

Kelly served at the highest levels of Trump's administration and says he is a fascist

The Journal editorial board, Lowry, and Gingrich were correct to worry about the prospect of an unhinged Trump unrestrained by a competent chief of staff. Mark Meadows, a former congressman who served in that role, oversaw the final chaotic months of Trump’s administration, during which Trump led a shambling response to the COVID-19 pandemic, threatened to use military force against protesters, and ultimately sought to subvert the results of the 2020 election and triggered the storming of the U.S. Capitol.

Now Kelly, who served Trump as chief of staff for a year and a half, is speaking out about what he saw in the White House and the urgent danger he says the former president poses to the country. In interviews with The New York Times, he said of Trump and his plans for a second term:

“Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators — he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”
“He certainly prefers the dictator approach to government.”
He “never accepted the fact that he wasn’t the most powerful man in the world — and by power, I mean an ability to do anything he wanted, anytime he wanted.”
“I think this issue of using the military on — to go after — American citizens is one of those things I think is a very, very bad thing — even to say it for political purposes to get elected — I think it’s a very, very bad thing, let alone actually doing it.”
“He’s certainly the only president that has all but rejected what America is all about, and what makes America America, in terms of our Constitution, in terms of our values, the way we look at everything, to include family and government — he’s certainly the only president that I know of, certainly in my lifetime, that was like that.”

Kelly is one of several high-ranking national security appointees in Trump’s administration who are warning the country that the former president is a fascist. Mark Milley, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Trump, has described him as “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person ever,” remarks reportedly echoed by Jim Mattis, Trump’s former secretary of defense.

And on Wednesday, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on CNN that “it's hard to say that” Trump “doesn't” fit the definition of fascist, adding, “He certainly has those inclinations, and I think it's something we should be wary about.”

Trump would not be similarly restrained in a second term. They’re still on board.

Trump stresses on the campaign trail that the major difference between his presidency and a second term would be that he has learned to surround himself with loyalists who will not try to restrain him. His former aides spun up Project 2025, which aims to provide the former president with a vetted list of zealots to staff his administration and White House.

But none of this is giving pause to the people who praised Kelly’s ability to keep Trump in check.

The Journal’s editorial board is pooh-poohing the idea that Trump might be a fascist, claiming that “the evidence of Mr. Trump’s first term” purportedly shows that “whatever his intentions, the former President was hemmed in by American checks and balances” — but Trump is explicitly preparing to free himself from such checks in a second term.

Lowry is writing in The New York Times about how Trump could actually win the election “on character.”

And Gingrich is predicting that Trump would be “dramatically more managerial and practical” in a second term.

Meanwhile, the man they touted for keeping Trump under control is publicly warning that Trump could destroy the American system.

The defining feature of right-wing media during the Trump era has been that you either back the former president despite your better instincts and morality, or you get excommunicated from the movement. That incentive structure — and the right-wing commentariat’s craven responses to it — explains the resulting media ecosystem rallying behind a lying felonious racist and conman who launched an insurrection and whose own former top aides describe as a fascist.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Trump Told Top Aides He Wanted Generals Who Would Obey Like Hitler's Did

A new bombshell report describes how, during his first administration, former President Donald Trump longed for the same kind of absolute dictatorial power that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler enjoyed.

In a Tuesday report, The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg wrote about his conversations with General John Kelly (Trump's former Department of Homeland Security secretary and ex-White House chief of staff) who described how the former president harbored a peculiar disdain for the military. He specifically lamented that he lacked the same kind of unwavering support from American military leadership that Hitler had during his reign.

"I need the kind of generals that Hitler had," Trump said, according to unnamed White House aides speaking confidentially to the Atlantic. "People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders."

Kelly told Goldberg that he had to gently remind Trump that there were multiple occasions in which Hitler's generals tried and failed to assassinate him, like on July 20, 1944. And of course, Hitler's generals ultimately lost World War II, with the ones who weren't killed dying in a bunker with Hitler as Stalin's army razed Berlin.

The four-star Marine general also frequently had to educate Trump about the basics of both military structure and military history. When Trump asked him who the "good guys" were in World War I, Kelly told him that it's customary for U.S. presidents to consider any nation allied with the United States to be the protagonists in any foreign war. He also had to caution him from praising Hitler, even when not referencing the Holocaust.

"He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things,’" Kelly told CNN's Jim Sciutto in an interview for his book. “[H]e said, ‘Well, [Hitler] rebuilt the economy.’ But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world... I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing.’”

As an illustration of how he feels about the U.S. military, the article described how incensed the former president was that the family of Pvt. Vanessa Guillén — who was beaten to death by her boyfriend at age 20 while stationed at Fort Hood in Texas — sent the White House the bill for their daughter's funeral after Trump specifically asked them to at a White House meeting. Her funeral cost approximately $60,000. Unnamed participants in a 2020 meeting confided to Goldberg that the ex-president became irate after hearing about the cost.

"Trump became angry," Goldberg wrote, adding that Trump reportedly said “it doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a f—ing Mexican!" He then told Mark Meadows, who was his chief of staff at the time, “Don’t pay it!”

“Can you believe it?” he then said, according to meeting attendees. “F—ing people, trying to rip me off.”

The report comes as the ex-president's campaign rhetoric has taken a decidedly more authoritarian tone. Sidney Blumenthal, who was an advisor to both Bill and Hillary Clinton, recently wrote in The Guardian about how Trump is echoing Hitler in calling Democrats "the enemy from within," and his claims that immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

The Many Crimes For Which Trump Hasn't Been Indicted -- Yet

How quickly we forget some of the outrageous acts Donald Trump was accused of committing while president. Let us review:

We begin with Trump’s incitement of the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol and his multi-pronged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election by illegal means. There was his attempt to strong-arm the Georgia secretary of state into “finding” enough votes that Trump would be declared victor in that state. Trump also called Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and urged him to call a special session of the legislature at which the election results would be thrown out and a new slate of electors appointed. He called the Pennsylvania Speaker of the House and attempted to strong-arm him into doing the same thing with the Pennsylvania legislature.

Trump met in the White House with members of the Michigan legislature and urged them to take similar steps in their state. He also made numerous phone calls to state officials and legislators in other battleground states, trying to pressure them to throw out the results of the elections in their states and submit slates of fake electors to the Congress. These calls resulted in the appointment of fake slates of electors in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Trump’s phone calls and meetings about submitting fake slates of electors would appear to be an overt act in furtherance of an attempt to interfere with a legitimate function of the government, i.e., the certification of electoral ballots on January 6.

Trump was behind attempts in several states to get law enforcement agencies to seize voting machines and turn them over to the Trump legal team. Voting machines were seized by officials or Trump-backers in Georgia and Colorado and voting machine data was copied by people working on Trump’s behalf in Colorado, Nevada, and Arizona. Tampering with voting data is illegal in every state in the Union, as is conspiracy to tamper with such data. Trump was in direct contact with his lawyer, Sidney Powell, who filed numerous lawsuits in battleground states on his behalf and was behind attempts to seize voting machines in Michigan and tampering with voting machine data in Nevada and Colorado.

Trump met with Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn in the Oval Office where they discussed suspending the Constitution, imposing martial law, and “re-running” the election using the U.S. military. Discussing such illegal schemes amounts to a conspiracy to overthrow the legitimate functions of the federal government, and the conspiracy need not bear fruit, i.e., be carried out, in order for an indictment for engaging in the conspiracy to be brought. The plot to impose martial law went far enough and was taken seriously enough that on December 18, Army Chief of Staff General James McConville and Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy issued a joint statement telling all active-duty Army forces that "There is no role for the US military in determining the outcome of an American election.”

And then of course there is the matter of Trump’s theft of government documents from the White House and his refusal over a period of 18 months to return them to the federal government, specifically to the National Archives, where they belonged. He is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice for having violated no less than three federal statutes involving obstruction of justice (he defied a subpoena and appears to have attempted to silence certain witnesses), mishandling of national security information (over 100 highly classified documents seized by the FBI from his office and residence at Mar a Lago) and the theft of the documents themselves.

There are unresolved allegations by the Mueller Report that Trump engaged in multiple acts of obstruction of justice and obstruction of a congressional committee. Mueller held that a sitting president could not be indicted and so dropped the matter. Trump isn’t president anymore. He’s indictable on every count of obstruction established by Mueller’s investigation. In case you forgot or haven’t checked lately, the Mueller investigation lasted nearly two years, from May of 2017 to March of 2019. The Mueller report itself survives, as does all the evidence his team of investigators painstakingly amassed, currently held by the National Archives.

The New York Times reported today that six countries spent more than $750,000 at the Trump Hotel in Washington D.C. while their officials were attempting to influence the Trump administration on behalf of their governments. The House Oversight Committee previously estimated that the Trump Hotel received as much as $3.7 million from foreign governments between 2017 and 2020. Trump refused to put his assets in a blind trust during his time in the presidency, instead turning over the running of his many businesses to his sons Eric and Donald Jr. and his daughter Ivanka. All the proceeds of Trump’s businesses go directly to Donald Trump as the sole owner of more than 500 separate companies under the umbrella of the Trump Organization.

The Trump Hotel, which was located in the Old Post Office building in Washington D.C. while Trump was president, is one of his companies, thus all profits derived from the hotel would accrue to his benefit. The Constitution’s Emoluments Clause states: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State. An emolument has been defined as anything of value including money. Trump’s profiting from monies spent at his hotel in Washington would appear to violate the U.S. Constitution, which is the Supreme Law of the Land.

And now we arrive at another late-breaking Trump crime. The New York Times also reported today that John Kelly, Trump’s second and longest-serving chief of staff, revealed to the paper that Trump had, on multiple occasions, attempted to have the IRS conduct audits of his political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe. On other occasions, Trump discussed with Kelly having the Department of Justice and the IRS investigate Hillary Clinton, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (who also owns The Washington Post), Peter Strzok, the lead FBI agent working on the Mueller investigation team, and Lisa Page, another FBI agent with whom Strzok was having an affair, and with whom he exchanged text messages critical of Trump.

No audits were conducted by the IRS on the incomes of either Comey or McCabe during the time Kelly was White House chief of staff. However, after Kelly left that position and Mark Meadows was appointed in his place, the IRS audited both Comey and McCabe, conducting a type of extensive audit described by experts as “an autopsy without being dead.”It is a violation of federal law for any federal official, including the president, “to request, directly or indirectly” that the IRS audit or conduct any kind of investigation of specific American taxpayers. Trump’s conversations with Kelly appear to fit the definition of that crime.

I’m sure I’ve missed something. Trump was a very busy man when it came to lining his own pockets, retaliating against political rivals and enemies, and attempting to either fix the results of the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, or in the case of the 2020 election, overturn its results. He seems to have committed enough crimes while in office to make even the second most corrupt president in recent memory, Richard Nixon, swivel in his grave.

It appears likely at this writing that the Department of Justice will seek to indict Trump on multiple counts of interfering with government operations, the mishandling of national security information, and obstruction of justice. The DOJ has seated two grand juries in Washington D.C., where they have presented multiple witnesses over the past year. One grand jury is hearing evidence on Trump’s crimes surrounding January 6 and his attempts to overturn the election of 2020. The other grand jury is hearing evidence concerning his theft and mishandling of government-owned documents after he left office.

Which is precisely what matters today. Donald Trump, who believed he was invulnerable while he was president and so did pretty much anything he decided to do and damn the consequences, is now a civilian. He is, in a word, indictable, whether he makes himself a candidate in the next presidential election or not.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Reprinted with permission from Lucian Truscott Newsletter

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Smart. Sharp. Funny. Fearless

Start your day with The National Memo Newsletter

Trump's Media Stooges Slander John Kelly As 'Traitor' And 'Seditionist'

Right-Wing Media Once Lionized John Kelly For Restraining Trump

Elite right-wing commentators lauded Kelly for keeping Trump under control

Kelly served at the highest levels of Trump's administration and says he is a fascist

Trump would not be similarly restrained in a second term. They’re still on board.

Trump Told Top Aides He Wanted Generals Who Would Obey Like Hitler's Did

The Many Crimes For Which Trump Hasn't Been Indicted -- Yet

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