White House adviser Jared Kushner said former administration officials who have been critical of his father-in-law since leaving their positions “didn’t have what it took.”
Kushner, 39, directed the criticism at former national security adviser John Bolton, and other top former officials, including former Defense Secretary James Mattis and former White House chief of staff John Kelly.
President Trump has “cycled out a lot of the people who didn’t have what it took to be successful here, and a lot of the people who have come in and been excellent are not out there complaining and writing books because they’re too busy working,” Kushner told CNN.
Bolton, 71, alleged in his forthcoming book that Trump withheld security aid to Ukraine to pressure the country into investigating 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden, undercutting Trump’s legal team’s claims that aid was not conditional on an investigation.
Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, said he had warned Trump that hiring a “yes man” to succeed him as chief of staff would lead to his impeachment. This week, Kelly, 69, criticized the Senate’s decision not to call additional witnesses in the impeachment trial, calling it “a job only half-done.”
Mattis, 69, mocked Trump’s war record after the president called him the “the world’s most overrated general.”
“I earned my spurs on the battlefield,” the retired Marine Corps general said. “Donald Trump earned his spurs in a letter from a doctor.”
Trump received five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, the first four being for college and the fifth for heel spurs.
Mattis and Bolton have written books since leaving the administration and clashing with Trump. Bolton’s book is set to be released in March, though the White House said it contains top secret information that cannot be published.
