WASHINGTON (AP) — Some in the military community are furious that President Donald Trump has drawn John Kelly’s family tragedy into a political brawl.
Trump this week suggested that President Barack Obama did not properly console Kelly’s family when his son, Robert, was killed in Afghanistan in 2010.
Chuck Hagel, defense secretary under Obama and a former Republican U.S. senator, called Trump’s comment to Fox News radio “sickening.” Former Marine Corps Commandant Charles Krulak said he doubts Kelly would allow anyone to use his family as a “political tool.”
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Kelly was “disgusted” that the focus had become the process of consoling families rather than the wartime deaths of U.S. military personnel. But Trump himself brought up the Kelly family’s sacrifice during a radio interview.