John Kelly's parting shot: I nipped some of Trump's worst ideas

He waved the red flags

Unlike Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, a fellow former Marine Corps four-star general, John Kelly isn't openly rebuking President Donald Trump as he leaves the administration. But like Mattis, Kelly isn't lavishing praise on him either.

In a two-hour exit interview with the Los Angeles Times, Kelly said his 18-month tenure is best measured by what the president did not do when Kelly had his ear — or at least not until the White House chief of staff was on his way out — like announcing pullouts of all U.S. forces in Syria and half those in Afghanistan.

Kelly’s supporters, according to the L.A. Times report, say he stepped in to block or divert the president on dozens of other matters, such as persuading Trump not to pull U.S. forces out of South Korea or withdraw from NATO.

Kelly said he did his job of making sure Trump, who says he often rules on his gut, was given detailed information before making a decision. “You may not like his decision, but at least he was fully informed on the impact,” Kelly said.

Trump at times was frustrated by the limits of his powers under the law, asking his chief of staff, “Why can’t we do it this way?” according to Kelly's account. But Trump never ordered him to do anything illegal, he stressed, “because we wouldn’t have.”

Kelly rarely looked like a happy warrior in a White House that pinballed from crisis to crisis even after he was brought aboard to curb the chaos. It's been a “bone-crushing hard job, but you do it," he said in the interview.

He kept at it despite policy and personality clashes, an exhausting schedule, and a legacy that will tie him to Trump controversies, he said, because "military people don't walk away."

They fenced over The Wall

Kelly has clashed with Trump over the president's original idea for a concrete wall on the Mexican border. The New York Times notes that after Kelly said earlier this year that Trump's early views were not “fully informed” and had “evolved,” Trump erupted on Twitter: “The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it.”

Kelly said in the L.A. Times interview that "we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration, when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it.” The answer from border patrol officers was more technology, more people and "a physical barrier in certain places." Kelly noted that Trump lately says “ ‘barrier’ or ‘fencing,’ now he’s tended toward steel slats." (The president has stuck with "build the wall" as a rallying cry for rallies and tweets as recently as this weekend.)

Kelly seemed to be in agreement with Trump that immigration laws need to be tougher, faulting "a crazy, oftentimes conflicting series of loopholes in the law in the United States that makes it extremely hard to turn people around and send them home.”

But Kelly seemed to part ways with Trump's demonizing of the migrants. “Illegal immigrants, overwhelmingly, are not bad people ... I have nothing but compassion for them, the young kids,” he said.

Loyal to nobody, especially those he no longer utliizes, Trump early Monday implied without evidence that Kelly is a liar. He tweeted: "An all concrete Wall was NEVER ABANDONED..." 

Janison: Unsteady as he goes

Trump is approaching his third year as president with battles intensifying on multiple fronts but no clear agenda, writes Newsday's Dan Janison.

Where special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation is going is the top unknown. More immediate questions include how events will unfold at the southern border, in the Mideast, and in trade confrontations launched by Trump, and whether Trump will keep roiling rather than reassuring the stock market.

Shutdown stare down

The partial government, in its second week, appeared no closer to ending as White House officials reaffirmed that Trump would likely veto any spending bill that does not meet his demands for border wall funding, reports Newsday's Laura Figueroa Hernandez.

White House counsel Kellyanne Conway, appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” said Trump may veto any spending bill that does not directly fund the wall. House Democrats said they won't do it.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn), the incoming House Democratic Caucus chairman, told ABC’s “This Week” that an “ineffective medieval border wall ... is a 5th century solution to a 21st century problem." Democrats were “certainly prepared to provide additional funding for enhanced fencing, technology, drones, satellites, lighting, sens, cellphone towers and the things the experts have clearly indicated would improve our border security."

Conway, when asked on CNN and "Fox News Sunday" to clarify Trump’s definition of border wall funding, said “it is not restricted to just wall-building.” She said, “There may be a wall in some places. There may be steel slats. There may be technological enhancements."

Not even thoughts and prayers

Trump's tweets about two migrant children who fell ill and died in detention were notably devoid of any sympathy for them.

"Any deaths of children or others at the Border are strictly the fault of the Democrats and their pathetic immigration policies that allow people to make the long trek thinking they can enter our country illegally," he said.

Conway called the deaths an "utter tragedy," while adding: "I don't like some of the Democrats using these deaths as political pawns."

On ABC’s “This Week,” Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan called the deaths “just absolutely devastating for us on every level" but defended his agency, saying "our agents did everything they could as soon as these children manifested symptoms of illness to save their lives."

Vets' gender gap on Trump

Trump gets a stronger job-approval rating from current and former members of the armed services than the public at large, according to an AP VoteCast study of midterm voters, but there's a divide between men and women who have served.

Almost six in 10 men with military experience — 58 percent — approved of Trump. But the same percentage of female veterans disapproved. Overall, Trump's approval rating among vets was 56 percent.

Here comes Warren 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is taking a step toward running for president, forming a so-called exploratory committee for 2020. 

"No matter what our differences, most of us want the same thing," the 69-year-old Massachusetts Democrat said in a video that highlights her family's history in Oklahoma. "To be able to work hard, play by the same set of rules and take care of the people we love. That's what I'm fighting for and that's why today I'm launching an exploratory committee for president."

What else is happening:

• Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said after a White House lunch Sunday that Trump has ordered a slowdown to the withdrawal of U.S. forces in Syria. "I think we're slowing things down in a smart way," Graham said, adding that Trump was very aware of the plight of U.S.-allied Kurds who face attack from Turkey.
• Adding to tensions with Russia, the country's domestic security agency has arrested an American named Paul Whelan on spying charges. Details are awaited.
• The former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, retired four-star Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, criticized Trump's behavior and handling of the presidency as dishonest and immoral. He wouldn't work for Trump, McChrystal told ABC News, because "I think it's important for me to work for people who I think are basically honest."
• Russia's Vladimir Putin told Trump in a New Year letter on Sunday that Moscow was ready for dialogue on a “wide-ranging agenda," including Washington’s plans to withdraw from a Cold War-era nuclear arms pact.
• A lawyer for five immigrants without documentation who worked at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, says the FBI and investigators from the state attorney general's office are scrutinizing their employment documents, signaling a potential probe into hiring practices, the Daily News and The Washington Post reported.
• The Washington Post Fact Checker has updated its tally of Trump's false or misleading claims as president. The score: 7,644.