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“The depth of his dishonesty is simply astonishing to me. The dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship, although it is more pathetic than anything else. He is the most imperfect person I have ever met in my life,” said the retired general of the Marine. told his friends, CNN found out.
The report comes from a new CNN special scheduled to air Sunday night, “The Insiders: A Warning From Former Trump Officials,” in which former senior administration officials, including former national security adviser John Bolton, Former Health and Human Services scientist Rick Bright and former Department of Homeland Security attorney general John Mitnick explain why they believe the president is unfit for the job.
Kelly’s feelings about the transactional nature and dishonesty of the president have been shared by other former members of the Trump administration who also appear on the special.
Olivia Troye, a former senior adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, has said that the president knew about the impact the coronavirus pandemic would have on the United States in mid-February, but that he “didn’t want to hear it, because his biggest concern was that we were in an election year. ” Miles Taylor, a former DHS chief of staff who now serves as a CNN contributor, has claimed that Trump essentially calls people within the federal government who disagree with him a “deep state.”
Elizabeth Neumann, another former DHS official, had criticized Trump for failing to condemn white supremacy after the first presidential debate in September.
“The fact that he still can’t say point blank, ‘I condemn white supremacy.’ It blows the mind,” he told CNN at the time.
Trump said Thursday during a town hall on NBC that he condemned white supremacy. “I denounce white supremacy, okay?” Trump told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie. “I have denounced white supremacy for years.”
Sometimes the president is successfully coaxed into condemning white supremacists, but often, as in the first presidential debate, he seems reluctant to do so, perhaps so as not to alienate any potential votes.
Kelly, who left the White House under contentious circumstances in January 2019, has occasionally voiced criticism of the Trump administration since leaving office.
In June, following George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police and Trump’s response to subsequent protests and calls for racial justice, Kelly said he agreed with the stern warning from former Defense Secretary General Jim Mattis, that Trump is “the first president in my life who does not try to unite the American people.” Kelly said he would have warned Trump against the idea of using law enforcement to clear Lafayette Square of protesters ahead of the president’s now-infamous photo shoot in front of a nearby church.
Kelly also defended retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman for raising concerns about the president’s call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the call at the heart of the president’s impeachment. And Kelly has said he believes Bolton’s accusation that Trump made US security aid to Ukraine conditional on an investigation into political rivals.
Kelly has said that before leaving the White House, he warned Trump: “Don’t hire a ‘yes man’, someone who won’t tell you the truth … because if he does, I think he will be charged.”
Since Kelly’s departure, the White House and the president have maintained that the former general was not cut out for his job in the West Wing.
“When I fired John Kelly, which I couldn’t do fast enough, he knew very well that it was way over his head,” Trump tweeted in February. “Being Chief of Staff just wasn’t for him. He came in with a bang, came out with a groan, but like so many X’s, he misses the action and just can’t keep his mouth shut.”
This story has been updated with additional background.
CNN’s Maegan Vázquez contributed to this report.
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