John Kelly, the former White House chief of staff, refused to say whether he agreed with President Donald Trump's self-assessment of his mental health and intelligence.
The retired U.S. Marine Corps general left the administration at the end of last year, and he appeared onstage Wednesday with a few other former Trump administration officials -- including one he fired after a brief and tumultuous stint as press secretary, reported the Daily Beast.
Kelly took part in the SALT hedge fund event organized by Anthony Scaramucci's firm SkyBright Capital, which also featured Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Stephen Moore and Jeff Sessions -- who all either served under Trump or were considered for administration positions.
Scaramucci spent less than two weeks on the job before he was fired by Kelly, in one of his first moves as chief of staff after taking over for Reince Priebus.
“I’m going to interview General Kelly here in a second,” Scaramucci told the crowd. “Some of you are probably saying, ‘That’s pretty cool.’ He fired me right after like, a week at the White House -- 11 days, by the way. I want to set the record straight: It was 11 days, not 10. I want to make that clear: If you’re hired on the 21st and fired on the 31st you don’t go 31 minus 21 — okay?"
"I did work the day of," he added, "on the 31st, he fired me at 9:30 in the morning, I said, ‘General, I’ve got a couple things I need to do.’ He goes, ‘Okay, leave at 2 o’clock.’ So I sort of feel like I get the full day. It was 11 days. Don’t gyp me out of 9.1 percent of my federal career – it’s just not fair.”
Kelly said the two have become friends since the firings, and Scaramucci said there are "no grudges in sports and politics."
Scaramucci questioned the former chief of staff about a variety of topics, and he gave brief but candid answers.
“I used to do off-the-records," Kelly said. "I don’t anymore.”
Kelly complained it was not his job to stop Trump from using Twitter, where the president infamously insisted he was a "very stable genius."
"I wouldn’t pass judgement on either of those," Kelly said.
He also told Scaramucci that he tried to stay away from the reported findings by special counsel Robert Mueller.
"I tried aggressively to stay out of it," he said.