Politics

Harris: ‘In a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there’

Published

1 year ago

November 11, 2024

Harris: ‘In a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there’

As most people know, the sitting president lives in the White House during his or her tenure, but where the sitting vice president lives might not be common knowledge: He or she lives at the U.S. Naval Observatory, which is only a few miles to the northwest of the White House.

Much of the public might not be aware of this, in large part because Americans generally don’t get to see the Naval Observatory. As a day-to-day matter, major political events simply don’t happen there.

But there are exceptions. Just as much of the country was starting to learn about former White House chief of staff John Kelly’s newest and most provocative accusations about Donald Trump, Kamala Harris’ aides announced that she would deliver remarks at the vice presidential residence — a rarity for both her and her predecessors.

Those who assumed the Democratic candidate would address Kelly’s comments were quickly proven correct. NBC News reported:

‘It is deeply troubling and incredibly dangerous that Donald Trump would invoke Adolf Hitler, the man who is responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Americans,’ Harris said. ‘All of this is further evidence for the American people of who Donald Trump really is.’ Harris said Kelly’s comments furthered her belief that Trump is ‘unstable’ and unfit for office, adding that he has now surrounded himself with people who would allow him to operate with ‘unchecked power.’

“Donald Trump is increasingly unhinged and unstable,” the vice president added. “And in a second term, people like John Kelly would not be there to be the guardrails against his propensities and his actions. Those who once tried to stop him from pursuing his worst impulses would no longer be there and no longer be there to rein him in.

“So, the bottom line is this: We know what Donald Trump wants. He wants unchecked power. The question in 13 days will be: What do the American people want?”

Hours later, Harris participated in a BLN town hall and continued to keep the focus on Kelly’s assessment of his former boss: The Democrat not only endorsed the retired general’s description of Trump as a “fascist,” she also described the former White House chief of staff’s new comments as “a 911 call to the American people.”

Harris went on to say, in reference to Trump’s critics from his own inner circle, “We must take very seriously those folks who knew him best.”

But wait, there’s more. The Harris campaign also organized a press call with retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Steve Anderson, a former senior counselor to Kelly and a Republican, as well as retired Army Reserve Colonel Kevin Carroll.

“Let’s be clear, the dangers of a second Trump term don’t lie solely in his rhetoric, but in his actions,” Carroll told reporters. “The last time Donald Trump was in power, he did try to enlist the military into his attempts to overturn a free and fair election that he knew he lost. He tried to weaponize our military against American citizens, including peaceful protesters. Again, he floated ‘terminating,’ in his words, the U.S. Constitution that service members swear an oath to, that these actions are outrageous and unacceptable. They fly in the face of everything our country stands for.

“The only reason Trump was stopped the last time was because people like General Kelly stood in the breach and acted as a check to Trump’s worst impulses. A second time around, those guardrails won’t exist. … He’s surrounding himself with little loyalists and toadies who will greenlight every one of his wishes, letting him bulldoze the tenets of our democracy and lock up fellow Americans, including sitting members of Congress, whom he calls ‘the enemy within.’”

By all appearances, the point of these furious efforts was to drive home a relatively simple point: This is it. This is the moment that might very well change everything. This is the five-alarm fire. This is what the whole campaign might very well be about.

A retired four-star general, who served at the Republican candidate’s side for two years, desperately wants his fellow Americans to know that he heard Trump disparage veterans. He heard Trump offer private praise for “Hitler’s generals” and the “good things” the former president thought Hitler did. He saw Trump try to abuse his powers. He knows why Trump meets the “definition of ‘fascist.’” He understands as well as anyone in the country that Trump “prefers the dictator approach to government.” He explained that Trump wants a military that puts its loyalty to him over its loyalty to the Constitution.

Harris and her team see this as the front page, above-the-fold news that we’ve been waiting for — the news that should decide who the nation’s next president will be. It’s now up to the electorate to decide whether it agrees.

Steve Benen

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

Politics

2028 Dem veteran? Uncle Sam wants you.

Published

11 hours ago

March 14, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

In the 15 days since President Donald Trump launched Operation Epic Fury on Iran, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) is approaching nearly a dozen media appearances, offering his often visceral reaction to the conflict.

Gallego, a 46-year-old combat veteran who deployed to Iraq as an infantryman in 2005, has emerged as a blunt, clear voice for the Democratic Party on foreign policy, speaking as someone whose own generation experienced the forever wars.

There he was on BLN’s “The Source with Kaitlin Collins” saying Secretary of State Marco Rubio was doing “CYA” and noting that the “MAGA base is pissed.” There he was sitting down with the AP speaking “as someone who lives with PTSD,” adding “it’s not been an easy week.” And there he was on Derek Thompson’s podcast, speaking about “going town to town searching for insurgents” 21 years ago, “but there was no clear direction of what victory looked like, what the end goal was, what was going to be the after-action report on Iraq.”

Gallego isn’t alone. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a Navy captain who flew combat missions during Operation Desert Storm in 1990, has also racked up a run of high-profile media appearances, as has former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, a U.S. Navy Reserve intelligence officer who deployed to Afghanistan. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who served in Afghanistan in the Army’s 82nd Airborne, went on local radio this week to link Americans’ affordability woes to the war.

In a year after many Democrats pined for a metaphorical fighter, the party is now having a conversation with itself about whether it needs a literal fighter — a veteran who can speak with credibility on issues of war and national security.

In an interview with Blue Light News, Gallego spoke of “dodging bullets, IEDs, RPGs, clearing towns and then coming back to the same towns with insurgents” and of “losing friends and still not understanding what the end goal was the whole time.”

“It leaves a mark on you, and you start seeing it happening again, you know, you don’t really think about the politics,” Gallego said. “You think about the people who are going to be potentially dying. And that’s why I think I was not hesitant to speak my mind on that.”

Later this month in San Antonio, Texas, Gallego will join VoteVets Action for its third town hall featuring potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidates, promising “fresh voices to the national conversation — those who have worn the uniform and served alongside us, who connect with everyday Americans others can’t,” according to a promotional video. (They’ve also done town halls with Buttigieg and Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin.)

“On foreign policy, the Dems need a candidate who is seen as strong/tough — not in rhetoric or bravado political platitudes but who conveys a sense of judgement and resolve with which voters connect instinctively,” said Doug Wilson, the former assistant secretary of Defense for Public Affairs during the Obama administration and co-lead of Buttigieg’s 2020 foreign policy team.

The “Iran war underscores the need” for such a candidate, Wilson added.

Whomever the Democrats select as their nominee could potentially face a Situation Room-steeped ticket deep with national security credentials, including a Marine Iraq war veteran in Vice President JD Vance or Rubio, with his secretary of State experience.

Depending on how the many conflicts the U.S. is engaged in at the moment resolve, that experience could cut against them.

But right now, Democrats who can match those bona fides have some currency others without them can’t.

“That’s obviously going to be helpful to them,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way. “It’s gonna be a big part of what they’re talking about for the next little while. But you know, how long does it last? We just don’t know, right? In my professional lifetime, foreign policy stuff and national security has mattered in a presidential race once — in 2004. That’s it. Otherwise, it comes up, but it’s not driving the conversation.”

Some potential Democratic candidates without such credentials have still managed to break through amid the Iran news cycle. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) has said the White House has treated aspects of the war “as a video game,” in a clip gaining traction on X. “When American service members killed in action are returning to the United States in flagged-draped coffins, and even more Americans have lost limbs or suffered terrible brain injuries or are fighting for their lives, this White House treats war like a game, and it’s a disgrace,” Ossoff said.

When asked whether military service is an essential for the party’s eventual nominee, Gallego acknowledged there is a benefit for someone who can “speak with that type of credibility.”

“I’m not the type of person that’s like, ‘you have to be a veteran — Iraq War veteran,’” Gallego said. “This is a democracy. We’re still one, and there’s a lot of people that can bring valuable experience and knowledge. But you know, someone that actually has a nuanced understanding of foreign policy; that doesn’t go to the total knee-jerk reactionism that sometimes we see where we go to the point of, you know, isolationism; or the other way, where we go to full neocon. There needs to be a very balanced way to how we approach the world.”

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