Lashing Out At Mattis And Kelly, Trump Says “Failed Generals” Need To Stop Complaining
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Mon, 12/31/2018
President Trump once prided himself in the fact that he had stocked his administration with capable military men like ex-Defense Secretary James Mattis and now-former Chief of Staff John Kelly. But as both men have departed his administration – with Mattis explicitly citing Trump’s decision to pull US troops out of Afghanistan and Syria, and Kelly criticizing these decisions in an exit interview – Trump Monday morning lashed out at “failed generals” who “complain” about Trump’s decision to fulfill his campaign promise to finish the “never-ending” wars in the US.
Trump also reminded Americans that he campaigned on ending wars like Afghanistan, which has dragged on for 17 years, while circumstances in the country have only seemed to deteriorate further.
Taking another shot at Kelly, who left the administration during an acrimonious battle over President Trump’s promised border wall, Trump responded to Kelly’s exit-interview claim that the ‘border wall’ isn’t actually a wall (he said ‘barrier’ or ‘fence’ would probably be more appropriate).
“To be honest, it’s not a wall,” said Kelly – who embarked in early 2017 on seeking advice from those who “actually secure the border,” on what to do. Speaking with Customs and Border Protection agents – referred to by Kelly as “salt-of-the-earth, Joe-Six-Pack folks,” the outgoing Chief of Staff recounts “They said, ‘Well we need a physical barrier in certain places, we need technology across the board, and we need more people’.”
“The president still says ‘wall’ — oftentimes frankly he’ll say ‘barrier’ or ‘fencing,’ now he’s tended toward steel slats. But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it.”
The Rest…HERE
