John Kelly's excuses why he worked for Trump are nothing but 'garbage': ex-GOP lawmaker

On MSNBC Saturday, former congressman and Never Trump conservative David Jolly (R-FL) laid into former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly for trying to recast himself now as a sensible voice against President Donald Trump, when he failed to do anything meaningful to rein him in when he was in power.

"You talked about the other day, people like Gen. Kelly and John Bolton who come out and tweet — now, John bolton apparently doesn't have the cojones to testify in the House, but he does want to sell a book and he wants you to know that he thinks it's bad that Lt. Col. Vindman was fired, and then he thinks John Kelly is a good guy, they think each other are good people," said host Joy Reid. "These people enabled Donald Trump this whole time. do they get any credit from you for tweeting?"

"No, not an ounce," said Jolly. "One of the conundrums you heard at the beginning of the administration is, I can do more for the country if I actually serve with this president than if I remain on the outside as a critic, but that's turned into a garbage statement. I made the reference the other day, a lot of these people, they're like the first mate on the Titanic. Yes, I knew the captain was going for the iceberg but my job was to help the captain do what he wanted to do. And then when you're off the ship, you say, well, I would have done it differently. Well, it's too late!"

"For the John Kellys, for the Boltons, for those, the greater calling of patriotism is for truth in the moment, where our country faces such a great challenge," said Jolly. "It's not to support the president who's leading the nation in the wrong direction. It's to us, the American people, not to the president who's using the power for his own political and personal interest. It's a shame, I knew John Kelly, I actually do have a personal respect for John Kelly given some of this things we worked on together. But he is indicative of people who decided to serve this president and destroy their reputation in the process."

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