John Kelly Will ‘Never’ Apologize For Comments About Rep. Wilson (VIDEO)

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said Monday night that he has no plans to apologize to Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) after falsely accusing her of boasting about securing funding for an FBI building.

During a Fox News interview, host Laura Ingraham asked Kelly if he had
“anything to apologize for” in his spat with the congresswoman following President Donald Trump’s phone call to a Gold Star widow.

“No. Never,” Kelly replied. “I’ll apologize if I need to. But for something like this, absolutely not. I stand by my comments.”

Their tiff began after Wilson revealed that Trump told the widow, Myeshia Johnson, that her husband knew what he was signing up for. Kelly defended Trump’s comments on the call and raised a new criticism of Wilson, claiming that she bragged about her work to secure funding for an FBI building that opened in 2015.

Video later surfaced that showed Wilson did not mention funding at all, but spent part of her speech talking about her efforts and the work of her colleagues in Congress to pass a bill quickly that would dedicate the new building to fallen FBI agents.

Kelly told Ingraham that after the video surfaced, a few people came to Kelly offering to back up his side of the story. But Kelly said he should “let go” of his fight with Wilson on that.

Watch a clip of the interview via Fox News:

Latest Livewire
73
Show Comments

Notable Replies

  1. Avatar for quin quin says:

    His sycophants told him he was telling the truth. The actual tape means nothing. There is a reason he works for human garbage. Let’s stop pretending that a compulsive liar and a racist is the adult in the room.

  2. Avatar for vonq vonq says:

    Well, that’s rather horrible.

  3. This guy has sure found a home. He’s gone over.

  4. Avatar for ajm ajm says:

    Shorter Kelly: It’s my party and I’ll lie if I want to.

    It is a lot easier to believe that Kelly has people who will lie for him than to believe that Wilson gave the videoed speech correctly describing her role but largely devoted to praising the fallen and accompanied it by a false description of her actions. That is Kelly’s current claim.

    Taken in the light absolutely most favorable to Kelly: if he cannot recognize that his memory played him tricks he should resign.

  5. A white military guy apologize to a black woman?

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

67 more replies

Participants

Avatar for valgalky23 Avatar for alliebean Avatar for richardinjax Avatar for mondfledermaus Avatar for sysprog Avatar for old_curmudgeon Avatar for mattinpa Avatar for jloomis3 Avatar for squirreltown Avatar for wwss Avatar for daveyjones64 Avatar for ralph_vonholst Avatar for yvonneofnc Avatar for neal_anderthal Avatar for serendipitoussomnambulist Avatar for dickweed Avatar for mrf Avatar for ghostrider Avatar for thunderclapnewman Avatar for misha Avatar for halfachievedharfleur Avatar for junglejoel Avatar for evave2 Avatar for kjpjr

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: