Then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, September 22, 2011. Reuters/Jason Reed

A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Adm. Mike Mullen, criticized top generals who have formed the crux of President Trump’s administration as getting too political and harming the military.

Mullen said on ABC’s “This Week” White House chief of staff, and retired Marine general, John Kelly and Army general and national security adviser H.R. McMaster are too involved in the politics of the administration.

He said McMaster got too involved in the politics of the White House upon entering the administration but has seemed to pull back from that recently. However, Kelly, who is retired, is all in on being political.

“What happened very sadly a few weeks ago when he was in a position to both defend the president in terms of what happened with a Gold Star family and John ends up politicizing the death of his own son in the wars is indicative of the fact that he clearly is very supportive of the president, no matter what,” Mullen said. “And that was really a sad moment.”

Mullen, who served in the White House for four years as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said McMaster and Kelly are entering a new arena that is outside of what is familiar to them as military men.

“The worry that I have is they're also really, for the first time in their lives, inside the White House and inside the political environment, which I certainly grew to understand over four years as chairman is a very difficult environment,” he said. “It's a foreign environment to all of them and so they're trying to get their job done while operating in a political environment that they're adjusting to. I have concern with respect to how good outcomes come out of it.”

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly with National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster at UN headquarters in New York, September 18, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Mullen said McMaster and Kelly are both model citizens and are trying to do the best for the country.

However, he said they need to find a point at which they will back away from the politics of the White House in order to avoid politicizing the military — especially McMaster, who is still on active duty.

“They're great Americans, great citizens. I know each of them are serving, trying to do the best for their country. When the president asks you to serve, the response is, the vast majority of times, you do that,” he said. “From that standpoint, I'm strongly for them.”

“I do worry, though, that one, they have limits, based on their backgrounds. They'll be learning. And two, from the standpoint of what it represents in terms of the civilian control of the military and the possible politicization of the military is concerning.”