Fox & Friends co-host says that John Kelly and others warning about Trump are guilty of “insubordination”
Published
Citation From the October 23, 2024, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
BRIAN KILMEADE (CO-HOST): Bring us to probably the most controversial thing that's happened over the last 24 hours, arguably the October surprise that John Kelly and General Mattis are authoring.
KAYLEIGH MCENANCY (GUEST CO-HOST): Yeah. So this — I heard this overnight. So this is The Atlantic. It's Jeffrey Goldberg, and here's the headlines from The Atlantic. Trump: "I need the kind of generals that Hitler had", and you can see the subtitle there, the Republican nominees, preoccupation with dictators, and it goes on.
When I saw this, first, they talk about a meeting with the Guillén family. The Guillén family tragically lost their sister, lost their daughter. She served our country honorably. And they characterize a meeting, one in which I was in. I was not in this December meeting they speak of, but a meeting with this family.
And here's what the sister said about this story. Wow. I don't appreciate how you all are exploiting my sister's death for politics. Hurtful, deceitful. The important changes she made for servicemembers, and indeed she did. President Donald Trump did nothing but show respect to my family and Vanessa.
I was in that July meeting. That was undoubtedly the case. But the reason my antennas went up last night when I saw the name Jeffrey Goldberg is because I was on a tarmac in September of 2020, and a story popped from him in the Atlantic, and it was the suckers and losers story we have all heard. Within hours, I was able to collect more than a dozen individuals, several who several who were firsthand sources saying that never happened.
Zach Fuentes, who was an aide of John Kelly, came out and said that never happened. We found contemporaneous documents disputing the reporter who said Trump did not go to the cemetery not because of a bad weather call. John Bolton's book disputes that. We found a contemporaneous document to dispute that. My point is, this is based on 4 anonymous sources.
KILMEADE: Mhmm.
MCENANY: 2 weeks before an election, disputed by people on the record, and yet it led a CBS news broadcast. What a shame. What a shame.
KILMEADE: Did they include your portion? Did they include?
MCENANY: No. They never reached out to me. I was in that first meeting. Never reached out to me. But I will say this quickly. Donald Trump, I've never seen him more downtrodden than when the suckers and losers story came out.
He'd normally stuff came out of his about his finances, fake stories. He didn't care. He was devastated by that story. I remember him saying, what kind of monster would ever say words like that? This is shameful reporting from the Atlantic, in my opinion.
LAWRENCE JONES (CO-HOST): Well, to the former president's point as well, he said when asked about this, he goes, just think about this logically. He goes, I'm in a cemetery surrounded by generals. He goes, why would I — why would I say he said, one of them would deck me in the face over something like — he goes, why would I say something? It just logically does not make sense to say that comment in the cemetery surrounded by generals. Absolutely.
KILMEADE: I have — the opinion on this, I saw this coming. You know I've said this for about for about a year. Yeah.
JONES: You did call this.
KILMEADE: So I read HR McMaster's book. I thought that was gonna be it. I find him unbelievably insightful and smart. I read his book. You know what he did as national security adviser?
He spent the whole time dealing with Mattis and Kelly, who I also like and have huge respect for, who didn't like the president, thought he was incompetent and not capable of doing the job, and they thought it was his their job to rein him in. McMaster said, even though he's a 3 star, telling 4 stars, and said, that's — we're civilians now. That's not your job. Your job is not to reign in the president. Your job is give him the best advice possible and do what he said.
Play this out. So if your general, who's your chief of staff, and your secretary of defense is not doing what you say on an everyday basis, he's like, you know, I'd love I could see him going, I love generals that listen. That would be great.
And he's also from a world where his company is huge, but it's a family company. So when he asked Eric or somebody to do something, they do it. It's not even publicly traded. He doesn't have board members.
All of a sudden, now he's like, do this. What do you mean you can't do it? Do this. What do you mean you can't do it? What do you mean I'm not allowed to do it?
And after a while, while being investigated, there were probably times we topped off. Wouldn't it be great if generals actually listen? Right. Can you imagine if some people listened to the commander-in-chief? I could absolutely see that happening.
And why and they know it in context, but they said he could win. I'm gonna stop him.
DOOCY: And so The Atlantic is getting a lot of publicity for this particular article, you know, and it's getting a lot of publicity because of the Hitler comment, which the Trump campaign says he never said that, and also the cost of the funeral because during the meeting you were at, for with, the family of Vanessa Guillén, he said, how much is it gonna cost? I you know, and her lawyer said the family lawyer said, well, the military is gonna take care of it. And he said, well, if there's a problem, let me know. I will financially pay for it.
And they said the things that he said afterwards never happened as well.
MCENANY Well, another story. And to your point, Brian, no new wars on President Trump's watch. So I think the results kinda speak for themselves.
KILMEADE: What is all -- when you say and done. You, you find out who got the military vote. And you find out maybe he doesn't get the general vote, but the people that serve, he's got their vote.
MCENANY: Absolutely.
JONES: They punish people below them, these four stars, for less than what they've done to Donald Trump. The insubordination that they coordinated --
KILMEADE: -- all the critical of Trump but not Biden, who authored of the worst disaster in the military
JONES: Well not just that. He commissioned the whole white supremacist report that came up fraudulent at the end of the day. So doesn't have much credibility in the military.