Kelly Won't Apologize For Comment About Congresswoman
BASH: Welcome back. The White House chief of staff last night on Fox News trotting out the company line.</s>JOHN KELLY, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: I know that the gentlemen were indicted today. All of the activities, as I understand it, that they were indicted for was long before they ever met Donald Trump or had any association with the campaign. But I think the reaction of the administration is let the legal justice system work, everyone's innocent until -- or presumed innocent and we'll see where it goes.</s>BASH: As the state (ph) rebuttal from the former general trying to distance the President from the indictments. But as the wide ranging interview went on, Kelly stirred up a brand new controversy with his answer on what caused the bloodiest conflict in American history.</s>KELLY: It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now, it's different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War. And men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.</s>BASH: I'm going to throw it to our resident Civil War historian, Carl, what do you make of that?</s>HULSE: Well, you know the President himself had said this earlier, I think this year in an interview with a historian said, you know, what was the deal with the Civil War, why couldn't that have been worked out? You know, the interesting thing that I found that he said there was, you know, inability to compromise. But American history tells you they really did try to compromise around the Civil War, the Compromise of 1850, the Missouri Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska Act. I didn't cover any of those. Yes. Now, you think I might have.</s>TALEV: You came in around reconstruction (ph), right?</s>HULSE: Right. But this is an issue that couldn't be compromised. Own slaves or not own slaves. And I think, you know, for him to bring that up out of nowhere in some ways after Charlottesville and some of the other things that have gone on and his own problems with his description of what went on with Frederica Wilson. I think it was a real, real mistake.</s>BASH: And I want to play, as we continue to talk about this, one other part of the interview. Not only did he kind of allude to what the President said they got him in trouble using the term both sides, he also talked about another hot button issue and that is Robert E. Lee.</s>KELLY: I think this is very, very dangerous and it shows you what -- how much of a lack of appreciation of history and what history is. I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man. He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which in 150 years ago was more important than country.</s>BASH: For those who didn't cover the Civil War, Robert E. Lee was, of course, the -- led the charge of the south that led the confederate soldiers. And obviously this whole notion and the question about statutes that are sprinkled all over the south, particularly in his own home state of Virginia, have been the thing that kind of keeps bubbling up. What do you make of him kind of getting out there on this? Is it just, again, party line and something that really does help the President with the base or dangerous?</s>MCCORMACK: You know, I have certain (ph) points. One would be that I don't think it's certainly wise for General Kelly to be getting involved in this hot button issues. You know, he is -- he has this</s>BASH: Yes, a lot more complicated.</s>MCCORMACK: I don't think that General Kelly should be getting involved.</s>BASH: And I want to move on, but I also should say that as we look ahead to 2018 I've talked to many Democrats in Trump districts who just are fearful of Democrats jumping on this because they think it's a distraction from what really matters and hurts Democrats and that Republicans are playing right into that. The thing -- the other thing that was really striking about John Kelly, which we never got to see before because he was a military man, a four-star general, then he was DHS secretary, kind of -- the character and the man of the guy who was running the trains at the White House and his approach is a lot like the President. You mentioned Frederica Wilson, the congresswoman, and a mistake that he made about referencing a speech and a video where he said something she didn't say, but he didn't apologize at all. Listen to this.</s>KELLY: Yes. And you know, a number of people that were there after she said what she said about me were volunteered to come forward because they saw her both before and after her official comments. I said, "No, let's not do these." These are FBI agents, former FBI agents that were there. That part of it we should let go.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But do you feel like you have something to apologize for?</s>KELLY: Do I?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.</s>KELLY: No. No, never. I will apologize if I need to, but for something like this, absolutely not. I stand by my comments.</s>KAPUR: This is where I think you nailed it with the mind-meld. There's nothing more Trumpy (ph) than refusing to apologize even when, you know, evidence later on proves you wrong. That's one area where that was true and the other was the false equivalent as he talk about the both side. They got the President in trouble for Charlottesville. What I want to know from General Kelly is what he thinks the compromise should have been. There were, as Carl pointed out, compromises attempted all along the way between the anti-slavery in north and the pro-slavery south starting with the 3/5 compromise. The things he mentioned, Missouri Compromise, Kansas-Nebraska Act. Even after the civil war, there were compromises made by Lincoln in an attempt to reintegrate the southern states and get them back into the union. So, what should have been the compromise between slavery, owning, beating, raping people and freedom for them?</s>BASH: Real quick, I want to get your take on the man we just saw kind of the veil lifted a little bit more and who he is and what he stands for and how he seems at least right there quite similar to the President.</s>TALEV: I think the real promise and strength (ph) to General Kelly when he came over, you know, a few months ago was his value behind the scenes in terms of internal operations staff of marching orders for the staff who comes in and who goes and to some extent to the President, although he couldn't control the Twitter. His public state is a totally different enterprise and it is something that's still evolving. This is really not something that he has experienced with. The White House has experimented with bringing him out only when the President is in trouble. General Kelly will do -- has done a couple of press briefings on days when they felt that they needed to do it because otherwise the President's own words or the press secretary's ability to change the narrative wasn't working. This interview seems to be also an example of that and I think they are fine tuning his efficacy in an outfacing manner versus in an in more facing manner.</s>BASH: Fascinating. OK, everybody stand by. Up next, Russia, Russia, Russia, what's all this about Russia infiltrating your social media feed? Google? Facebook? Twitter? You use those. Well, if you do, you might have been trolled by Russians trying to change your vote in 2016.</s>SEN. BEN CARDIN (D), MARYLAND: We've got to take steps to protect our Democratic institutions, including how social media is used by foreign governments to try to influence America's Democratic institutions.