Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal is a contender to be running mate for presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, according to a new report from ABC News.
McChrystal lost his job as the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan following a Rolling Stone magazine profile that quoted the general and his advisors insulting President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden and criticizing the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.
“Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was,” a McChrystal aide told Rolling Stone while describing the first meeting between the general and the president. “Here’s the guy who’s going to run his fucking war, but he didn’t seem very engaged. The boss was pretty disappointed.”
McChrystal was subsequently relieved of command. “It undermines the civilian control of the military … and it erodes the trust that is necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan,” Obama said at the time.
That would make McChrystal the second general who was fired by President Obama to be considered as a potential vice presidential candidate to run with Trump. Trump is also vetting retired Lt. Gen Michael Flynn. Like McChrystal, Flynn did a stint as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, which conducts elite counter-terrorism operations. Flynn was promoted to lead the Defense Intelligence Agency but was ultimately removed from that job.
Flynn wrote an op-ed defending his tenure at DIA and attributing his firing to a hostile bureaucracy that didn’t want to be reformed and the Obama administration’s distaste for his blunt rhetoric about jihadism. His critics said he had a “chaotic” management style.
