Retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, former Homeland Security secretary and White House chief of staff in the Trump administration, found out the hard way Friday not to criticize former President Donald Trump.
Kelly commented before Trump's arraignment Tuesday in Miami, during which the former president pleaded not guilty to a 37-count federal indictment regarding his handling of classified documents, that Trump's nonchalant, almost celebratory, attitude toward his latest legal drama means he's "scared s***less."
"This is the way he compensates for that," Kelly told The Washington Post. "He gives people the appearance he doesn't care by doing this. For the first time in his life, it looks like he's being held accountable.
"Up until this point in his life, it's like, I’m not going to pay you; take me to court. He's never been held accountable before."
Trump responded on Truth Social saying Kelly was "born with a VERY small 'brain'" and that by the time Trump fired him in 2018, he was a "mummy" who sat in his office staring at the ceiling.
"John Kelly pretended to be a 'tough guy,'" Trump wrote. "He had a hard time functioning in a political world and was truly an exhausted and beaten man when I fired him.
"In the end he ... sat in his office and stared at the ceiling — he was 'shot.' I'll never forget how his very nice wife told me that 'John loves you, and respects you more than anyone, he will always say the BEST things about you.' Oh well, so much for that!"
Trump once referred to Mick Mulvaney, who replaced Kelly as White House chief of staff, as "perhaps the dumbest person" and a "born loser." Additionally, Trump called his former national security adviser John Bolton "one of the dumbest people in Washington" and reportedly called former Defense Secretary James Mattis "the world's most overrated general."
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