Friday, October 12, 2018

Senator Warren responds to John Kelly

Great comeback to when Kelly called her an "impolite, arrogant woman." I've copied and pasted it below. We need more of these strong, fierce women in Congress and the White House. She said:

"Remember when Donald Trump launched the illegal, bigoted Muslim ban? People were being illegally detained – a direct and flagrant violation of court orders. So my office tried to get answers from the Department of Homeland Security about families who couldn’t get home to Logan Airport.

"There was only one problem: Trump’s new Secretary of Homeland Security – John Kelly – wouldn’t return our calls and emails. My staff emailed back and forth with his staff, but we couldn’t get them to set up a call or answer our questions. When I finally did get on the phone with John Kelly, I asked if he had an office number that I could use in the future to get in touch more quickly. He brushed me off, directing me to the main line listed on the Department of Homeland Security’s website (really). Even worse, he bizarrely insisted that I’d made the whole thing up and we’d never tried to reach him in the first place. I happened to be looking at all the emails between his staff and my staff when he said this, so I started reading them to him. He accused me again of making it all up.

"My policy staffers were in the room. And to this day, I’ve never seen so many jaws drop in unison. It was one of the first times we saw “alternative facts” so up close and personal. And one of the first times we saw how truly dysfunctional the executive branch had become – and how quickly.

So what happened next? You guessed it – I persisted. I asked again for his number. He hemmed and hawed, and he again tried to give me the Department’s main line. Let’s just say that’s when the conversation really started getting awkward – and that I persisted longer than he did. Eventually, he didn’t just give me his office number – he gave me his cell number.

"Before we got off the phone, I gave him something back for his troubles – a message on behalf of the American people that it was time to follow the court order and allow people stranded abroad to board planes into Logan International Airport.

"Was I tough on John Kelly in that phone call? You bet I was. Apparently he thought I was an “impolite arrogant woman.” “Blah blah blah” – that’s all he had to say when he was called out for breaking the law and destroying lives. Mitch McConnell & Donald Trump can’t shut me up – and neither can John Kelly. (He can’t even get Donald Trump off Twitter, and as far as I can tell, that was his main job description when he took on the role of White House Chief of Staff).

"There are some men who can only hear “blah blah blah” whenever a woman’s talking. But there’s nothing impolite about people’s right to speak out and hold their government accountable. And sometimes, people are right to be angry."

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