You’ve got to hand it Anthony Scaramucci for inviting General John F. Kelly to Las Vegas.
There’s not many people who would invite the person who fires you from a very high-profile position after only 11 days to join you on stage at your hedge fund conference for a chat.
And that the person accepts that invitation says a little (or a lot) about Scaramucci, the founder and co-managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, and the founder of the SALT Conference, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary at The Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas this week.
Sure enough, Kelly, who stepped down in January as the White House Chief of Staff after 18 months, appeared with Scaramucci during a keynote session on Wednesday to discuss his distinguished career and his time as President Trump’s top advisor.
Kelly and Scaramucci have developed a friendship since Kelly removed Scaramucci from his brief tenure as White House Communications Director in July of 2017, a friendship which led to the invitation to speak at SALT.
A recurring theme of the 45-minute conversation was Kelly’s sense of duty in taking over the high-stakes role in a tumultuous, unconventional White House. Kelly noted that once a candidate is elected by the American people to the office of President of the United States, it becomes in in every American’s interest to hope that person succeeds. Candidates run on an agenda, and once in office they try to fulfill that agenda. “My job is to help,” Kelly said.
“Every President deserves the best staffing that we can possibly provide,” he said. When I was there, the President of the United States was well staffed and when he needed to make a decision, he had all the staff and resources to make a decision. The role of the Chief of Staff is to make sure the President makes the most informed decisions, and that’s what I did for 18 months.”
Kelly said President Trump is a “show me” guy, and bringing in the appropriate people to discuss issues was important. “I don’t agree with you. Convince me!”
Regarding President Trump’s notorious use of Twitter, Kelly said he never tried to curtail Trump from using it. “OK, you’ve made my life more complicated than it had to be today,” Kelly said of occasional tweetstorm consequences, but explained that Trump believes he’s not given a fair shake by the press, so the Twitter process allows him to go around the press to get his message out. “And he did it a lot,” Kelly said.
Kelly lamented the lack of civility in Washington and beyond these days, and encouraged Americans to get involved as a way of addressing the problem. “Americans used to be able to disagree with each other and not hate each other,” he said. “Our elected officials have got to understand they need to talk to each other and compromise. If you don’t do that then nothing’s going to happen.”
As to whether he thinks Trump will win reelection in 2020? He said if the Democrats pick the right person they might give him a run for his money, “but I think he’ll win a second term.”
Veteran financial services industry journalist Brian Anderson joined 401(k) Specialist as Managing Editor in January 2019. He has led editorial content for a variety of well-known properties including Insurance Forums, Life Insurance Selling, National Underwriter Life & Health, and Senior Market Advisor. He has always maintained a focus on providing readers with timely, useful information intended to help them build their business.
