If Kelly had left it at that, perhaps the controversy could have been chalked up to miscommunication. Instead he took a page from Trump’s playbook and went on offense, singling out Wilson for condemnation. “We were stunned,” he said. “Stunned that she had done it. Even for someone who was that empty of a barrel, we were stunned. But we didn’t go to the press.” He added, “I appeal to America, let’s not let this last thing that’s held sacred in our society—a young man or young woman going out and giving his or her life for our country—let’s try to somehow to keep that sacred. But it eroded a great deal yesterday by the selfish behavior of a member of Congress.” Kelly was so mad, he said, that he went to Arlington National Cemetery to take a 90-minute walk.



But Wilson was not just some meddling congresswoman. She had mentored Johnson and known his family for years. The call had been put on speakerphone so everyone could listen to the president. Even if it was a matter of miscommunication, she had every right to be upset. And Kelly skated over the fact that he was acknowledging the substance of a call that Trump had claimed was an outright lie. (Later, in the dead of night, Trump repeated his claim in a tweet, claiming Wilson “gave a total lie on the content!”) This is not the behavior of a man keeping the president in check.



Later, Kelly appeared to take a swipe at Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the Gold Star parents who memorably spoke at the Democratic National Convention last summer and drew Trump’s fury. He also made an oblique comment about respecting women. “When I was a kid growing up a lot of things were sacred in our country,” Kelly said. “Women were sacred and looked upon with great honor. That’s obviously not the case anymore as we’ve seen from recent cases. Life, the dignity of life, was sacred. That’s gone. Religion. That seems to be gone as well. Gold Star families, I think that left in the convention over the summer.”



Is Kelly implying that the Khans were responsible for tainting the reputation of Gold Star families, not the presidential candidate who attacked them? Is the comment about women an allusion to the Harvey Weinstein scandal, or a rebuke of Trump, who has been accused by numerous women of harassment and assault? That he left it so open to interpretation is not to his credit. It advances the notion that the Khans’ objections to Trump’s Islamophobia were illegitimate, and that Weinstein’s misconduct somehow invalidates the liberal criticism of Trump’s misogyny.

